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MEMOIR  OF  FLEEMING  JENKIN 


[Authors  Edition] 


MEMOIR 


FLEEMING   JENKIN 


BY 

ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1899 


Q 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN   EDITION. 


ON  the  death  of  Fleeming  Jenkin,  his  family 
and  friends  determined  to  publish  a  selection  of 
his  various  papers;  by  way  of  introduction,  the 
following  pages  were  drawn  up  ;  and  the  whole, 
forming  two  considerable  volumes,  has  been  is- 
sued in  England.  In  the  States,  it  has  not  been 
thought  advisable  to  reproduce  the  whole  ;  and 
the  memoir  appearing  alone,  shorn  of  that  other 
matter  which  was  at  once  its  occasion  and  its 
justification,  so  large  an  account  of  a  man  so 
little  known  may  seem  to  a  stranger  out  of  all 
proportion.  But  Jenkin  was  a  man  much  more 
remarkable  than  the  mere  bulk  or  merit  of  his 
work  approves  him.  It  was  in  the  world,  in  the 
commerce  of  friendship,  by  his  brave  attitude 
towards  life,  by  his  high  moral  value  and  un- 
wearied intellectual  effort,  that  he  struck  the 

(v) 

857430 


vi     Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

minds  of  his  contemporaries.  His  was  an  in- 
dividual figure,  such  as  authors  delight  to  draw, 
and  all  men  to  read  of,  in  the  pages  of  a  novel. 
His  was  a  face  worth  painting  for  its  own  sake. 
If  the  sitter  shall  not  seem  to  have  justified  the 
portrait,  if  Jenkin,  after  his  death,  shall  not 
continue  to  make  new  friends,  the  fault  will  be 

altogether  mine. 

R.  L.  S. 
SARANAC,  Oct.,  1887. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

The  Jenkins  of  Stowting— Fleeming's  grandfather— Mrs.  Buck- 
ner's  fortune  —  Fleeming's  father;  goes  to  sea;  at  St. 
Helena ;  meets  King  Tom ;  service  in  the  West  Indies ; 
end  of  his  career — The  Campbell-Jacksons  —  Fleeming's 
mother — Fleeming's  Uncle  John I 

CHAPTER  II. 
1833—1851. 

Birth  and  Childhood — Edinburgh— Frankfort-on-the-Main — 
Paris — The  Revolution  of  1848 — The  Insurrection — Flight 
to  Italy — Sympathy  with  Italy— The  Insurrection  in  Genoa 
— A  Student  in  Genoa — The  Lad  and  his  Mother  .  .  34 

CHAPTER  III. 
1851—1858. 

Return  to  England— Fleeming  at  Fairbaira's— Experience  in 
a  Strike — Dr.  Bell  and  Greek  Architecture — The  Gaskells 
— Fleeming  at  Greenwich — The  Austins — Fleeming  and 
the  Austins — His  Engagement — Fleeming  and  Sir  W. 
Thomson 71 

CHAPTER  IV. 
1859—1868. 

Fleeming's  Marriage — His  Married  Life— Professional  Diffi- 
culties— Life  at  Claygate — Illness  of  Mrs.  F.  Jenkin  :  and 
of  Fleeming— Appointment  to  the  Chair  at  Edinburgh  101 

(vii) 


viii  Contents. 

CHAPTER  V. 

FAQS 

Notes  of  Telegraph  Voyages,  1858  to  1873        ....     123 

CHAPTER  VI. 

1869—1885. 

Edinburgh — Colleagues — Farrago  Vitce—\.  The  Family  Cir- 
cle—Fleeming  and  his  Sons — Highland  Life— The  Cruise 
of  the  Steam  Launch — Summer  in  Styria — Rustic  Manners 
—II.  The  Drama— Private  Theatricals— III.  Sanitary  As- 
sociations—The Phonograph — IV.  Fleeming's  Acquaint- 
ance with  a  Student — His  late  Maturity  of  Mind — Religion 
and  Morality — His  Love  of  Heroism— Taste  in  Literature 
— V.  His  Talk  —  His  late  Popularity— Letter  from  M. 
Trelat 198 

CHAPTER  VII. 
1875—1885. 

Mrs.  Jenkin's  Illness—  Captain  Jenkin— The  Golden  Wedding 
— Death  of  Uncle  John — Death  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Austin — 
Illness  and  Death  of  the  Captain — Death  of  Mrs.  Jeukin — 
Effect  on  Fleeming — Telpherage — The  End  .  .  .  357 

APPENDIX 977 


MEMOIR 

OF 

FLEEMING  JENKIN 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Jenkins  of  Stowting— Fleeming's  grandfather— Mrs.  Buckner's 
fortune — Fleeming's  father ;  goes  to  sea ;  at  St.  Helena ;  meets 
King  Tom ;  service  in  the  West  Indies  ;  end  of  his  career — The 
Campbell-Jacksons — Fleeming's  mother — Fleeming's  uncle  John. 

TN  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  a  family  of  the 
•*•  name  of  Jenkin,  claiming  to  come  from  York, 
and  bearing  the  arms  of  Jenkin  ap  Philip  of  St. 
Melans,  are  found  reputably  settled  in  the  county 
of  Kent.  Persons  of  strong  genealogical  pinion 
pass  from  William  Jenkin,  Mayor  of  Folke- 
stone in  1555,  to  his  contemporary  'John 
Jenkin,  of  the  Citie  of  York,  Receiver  General 
of  the  County,'  and  thence,  by  way  of  Jenkin  ap 
Philip,  to  the  proper  summit  of  any  Cambrian 
pedigree — a  prince;  'Guaith  Voeth,  Lord  of 
Cardigan/  the  name  and  style  of  him.  It  may 


2        Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

suffice,  however,  for  the  present,  that  these 
Kentish  Jenkins  must  have  undoubtedly  derived 
from  Wales,  and  being  a  stock  of  some  efficiency, 
they  struck  root  and  grew  to  wealth  and  conse 
quence  in  their  new  home. 

Of  their  consequence  we  have  proof  enough 
in  the  fact  that  not  only  was  William  Jenkin  (as 
already  mentioned)  Mayor  of  Folkestone  in 
1555,  but  no  less  than  twenty-three  times  in  the 
succeeding  century  and  a  half,  a  Jenkin  (Will- 
iam, Thomas,  Henry,  or  Robert)  sat  in  the  sarm 
place  of  humble  honour.  Of  their  wealth  wt/ 
know  that  in  the  reign  of  Charles  L,  Thomas 
Jenkin  of  Eythorne  was  more  than  once  in  the 
market  buying  land,  and  notably,  in  1633,  ac- 
quired the  manor  of  Stowting  Court.  This  was 
an  estate  of  some  320  acres,  six  miles  from 
Hythe,  in  the  Bailiwick  and  Hundred  of  Stow 
ting,  and  the  Lathe  of  Shipway,  held  of  the 
Crown  in  capite  by  the  service  of  six  men  and 
a  constable  to  defend  the  passage  of  the  sea  at 
Sandgate.  It  had  a  chequered  history  before  it 
fell  into  the  hands  of  Thomas  of  Eythorne,  hav- 
ing been  sold  and  given  from  one  to  another — 
to  the  Archbishop,  to  Hermgods,  to  the  Burgh- 


Genealogy  a  Human  Science.          3 

ershes,  to  Pavelys,  Trivets,  Cliffords,  Wenlocks, 
Beauchamps,  Nevilles,  Kempes,  and  Clarkes :  a 
piece  of  Kentish  ground  condemned  to  see  new 
faces  and  to  be  no  man's  home.  But  from  1633 
onward  it  became  the  anchor  of  the  Jenkin 
family  in  Kent;  and  though  passed  on  from 
brother  to  brother,  held  in  shares  between  uncle 
and  nephew,  burthened  by  debts  and  jointures, 
and  at  least  once  sold  and  bought  in  again,  it 
remains  to  this  day  in  the  hands  of  the  direct 
line.  It  is  not  my  design,  nor  have  I  the  neces- 
sary knowledge,  to  give  a  history  of  this  ob- 
scure family.  But  this  is  an  age  when  genealogy 
has  taken  a  new  lease  of  life,  and  become  for  the 
first  time  a  human  science ;  so  that  we  no  longer 
study  it  in  quest  of  the  Guaith  Voeths,  but  to 
trace  out  some  of  the  secrets  of  descent  and  des- 
tiny ;  and  as  we  study,  we  think  less  of  Sir  Ber- 
nard Burke  and  more  of  Mr.  Galton.  Not  only 
do  our  character  and  talents  lie  upon  the  anvil 
and  receive  their  temper  during  generations  ; 
but  the  very  plot  of  our  life's  story  unfolds  itself 
on  a  scale  of  centuries,  and  the  biography  of  the 
man  is  only  an  episode  in  the  epic  of  the  family. 
From  this  point  of  view  I  ask  the  reader's  leave 


4/        Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

to  begin  this  notice  of  a  remarkable  man  who 
was  my  friend,  with  the  accession  of  his  great- 
grandfather, John  Jenkin. 

This  John  Jenkin,  a  grandson  of  Damaris 
Kingsley,  of  the  family  of  '  Westward  Ho  ! '  was 
born  in  1727,  and  married  Elizabeth,  daugh- 
ter of  Thomas  Frewen,  of  Church  House,  Nor- 
thiam.  The  Jenkins  had  now  been  long  enough 
intermarrying  with  their  Kentish  neighbours  to 
be  Kentish  folk  themselves  in  all  but  name ;  and 
with  the  Frewens  in  particular  their  connec- 
tion is  singularly  involved.  John  and  his  wife 
were  each  descended  in  the  third  degree  from 
another  Thomas  Frewen,  Vicar  of  Northiam, 
and  brother  to  /*.:cepted  Frewen,  Archbishop  of 
York.  John's  mother  had  married  a  Frewen  for 
a  second  husband.  And  the  last  complication 
was  to  be  add  '  <by  the  Bishop  of  Chichester's 
brother,  Charles  Buckner,  Vice-Admiral  of  the 
White,  who  was  twice  married,  first  to  a  paternal 
cousin  of  Squire  John,  and  second  to  Anne,  only 
sister  of  the  Squire's  wife,  and  already  the  widow 
of  another  Frewen.  The  reader  must  bear  Mrs. 
Buckner  in  mind ;  it  was  by  means  of  that  lady 
that  Fleeming  Jenkin  began  life  as  a  poor  man. 


Stephen  Jenkin,  the   Vicar.  -\ 

Meanwhile,  the  relationship  of  any  Frewen  to 
any  Jenkin  at  the  end  of  these  evolutions  pre- 
sents a  problem  almost  insoluble ;  and  we  need 
not  wonder  if  Mrs.  John,  thus  exercised  in  her 
immediate  circle,  was  in  her  old  age  '  a  great 
genealogist  of  all  Sussex  families,  and  much  con- 
sulted.' The  names  Frewen  and  Jenkin  may 
almost  seem  to  have  been  interchangeable  at 
will ;  and  yet  Fate  proceeds  with  such  particu- 
larity that  it  was  perhaps  on  the  point  of  name 
that  the  family  was  ruined. 

The  John  Jenkins  had  a  family  of  one  daughter 
and  five  extravagant  and  unpractical  sons.  The 
eldest,  Stephen,  entered  the  Church  and  held 
the  living  of  Salehurst,  where  l.j  offered,  we  may 
hope,  an  extreme  example  of  the  clergy  of  the 
age.  He  was  a  handsome  figure  of  a  man ;  jo- 
vial and  jocular ;  fond  of  his  g  "-en,  which  pro- 
duced under  his  care  the  finest  fruits  of  the 
neighbourhood;  and  like  all  the  family,  very 
choice  in  horses.  He  drove  tandem  ;  like  Jehu, 
furiously.  His  saddle  horse,  Captain  (for  the 
names  of  horses  are  piously  preserved  in  the 
family  chronicle  which  I  follow),  was  trained  to 
break  into  a  gallop  as  soon  as  the  vicar's  foot 


6         Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

was  thrown  across  its  back ;  nor  would  the  rein 
be  drawn  in  the  nine  miles  between  Northiam 
and  the  Vicarage  door.  Debt  was  the  man's 
proper  element ;  he  used  to  skulk  from  arrest 
in  the  chancel  of  his  church  ;  and  the  speed  of 
Captain  may  have  come  sometimes  handy.  At 
an  early  age  this  unconventional  parson  married 
his  cook,  and  by  her  he  had  two  daughters  and 
one  son.  One  of  the  daughters  died  unmarried ; 
the  other  imitated  her  father,  and  married  *  im- 
prudently.' The  son,  still  more  gallantly  con- 
tinuing the  tradition,  entered  the  army,  loaded 
himself  with  debt,  was  forced  to  sell  out,  took 
refuge  in  the  Marines,  and  was  lost  on  the  Dog- 
ger Bank  in  the  war-ship  Minotaur.  If  he  did 
not  marry  below  him,  like  his  father,  his  sister, 
and  a  certain  great-uncle  William,  it  was  per- 
haps because  he  never  married  at  all. 

The  second  brother,  Thomas,  who  was  em- 
ployed in  the  General  Post-Office,  followed  in 
all  material  points  the  example  of  Stephen, 
married  '  not  very  creditably,'  and  spent  all  the 
money  he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  He  died 
without  issue;  as  did  the  fourth  brother,  John, 
who  was  of  weak  intellect  and  feeble  health,  and 


Fleemings  Grandfather.  7 

the  fifth  brother,  William,  whose  brief  career  as 
one  of  Mrs.  Buckner's  satellites  will  fall  to  be 
considered  later  on.  So  soon,  then,  as  the  Mino- 
taur had  struck  upon  the  Dogger  Bank,  Stow- 
ting  and  the  line  of  the  Jenkin  family  fell  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  third  brother,  Charles. 

Facility  and  self-indulgence  are  the  family 
marks;  facility  (to  judge  by  these  imprudent 
marriages)  being  at  once  their  quality  and  their 
defect ;  but  in  the  case  of  Charles,  a  man  of 
exceptional  beauty  and  sweetness  both  of  face 
and  disposition,  the  family  fault  had  quite  grown 
to  be  a  virtue,  and  we  find  him  in  consequence 
the  drudge  and  milk-cow  of  his  relatives.  Born 
in  1766,  Charles  served  at  sea  in  his  youth,  and 
smelt  both  salt  water  and  powder.  The  Jenkins 
had  inclined  hitherto,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out, 
to  the  land  service.  Stephen's  son  had  been  a 
soldier;  William  (fourth  of  Stowting)  had  been 
an  officer  of  the  unhappy  Braddock's  in  America, 
where,  by  the  way,  he  owned  and  afterwards  sold 
an  estate  on  the  James  River,  called  after  the 
parental  seat;  of  which  I  should  like  well  to 
hear  if  it  still  bears  the  name.  It  was  probably 
by  the  influence  of  Captain  Buckner,  already  con- 


8         Memoir  of  Fieeming  Jenkin. 

nected  with  the  family  by  his  first  marriage,  that 
Charles  Jenkin  turned  his  mind  in  the  direction 
of  the  navy ;  and  it  was  in  Buckner's  own  ship, 
the  Proth(fe,  64,  that  the  lad  made  his  only  cam- 
paign. It  was  in  the  days  of  Rodney's  war, 
when  the  Prothfo,  we  read,  captured  two  large 
privateers  to  windward  of  Barbadoes,  and  was 
'  materially  and  distinguishedly  engaged '  in 
both  the  actions  with  De  Grasse.  While  at  sea 
Charles  kept  a  journal,  and  made  strange  archaic 
pilot-book  sketches,  part  plan,  part  elevation, 
some  of  which  survive  for  the  amusement  of 
posterity.  He  did  a  good  deal  of  surveying,  so 
that  here  we  may  perhaps  lay  our  finger  on  the 
beginning  of  Fleeming's  education  as  an  engin- 
eer. What  is  still  more  strange,  among  the 
relics  of  the  handsome  midshipman  and  his  stay 
in  the  gun-room  of  the  Prothte,  I  find  a  code  of 
signals  graphically  represented,  for  all  the  world 
as  it  would  have  been  done  by  his  grandson. 

On  the  declaration  of  peace,  Charles,  because 
he  had  suffered  from  scurvy,  received  his  mother's 
orders  to  retire ;  and  he  was  not  the  man  to  re- 
fuse a  request,  far  less  to  disobey  a  command 
Thereupon  he  turned  farmer,  a  trade  he  was  to 


The  Sailor-Farmer  at  Stowting.      9 

practice  on  a  large  scale;  and  we  find  him  mar- 
ried to  a  Miss  Schirr,  a  woman  of  some  fortune, 
the  daughter  of  a  London  merchant.  Stephen, 
the  not  very  reverend,  was  still  alive,  galloping 
about  the  country  or  skulking  in  his  chancel. 
It  does  not  appear  whether  he  let  or  sold  the 
paternal  manor  to  Charles ;  one  or  other,  it 
must  have  been  ;  and  the  sailor-farmer  settled 
at  Stowting,  with  his  wife,  his  mother,  his  un- 
married sister,  and  his  sick  brother  John.  Out 
of  the  six  people  of  whom  his  nearest  family 
consisted,  three  were  in  his  own  house,  and  two 
others  (the  horse-leeches,  Stephen  and  Thomas) 
he  appears  to  have  continued  to  assist  with  more 
amiability  than  wisdom.  He  hunted,  belonged 
to  the  Yeomanry,  owned  famous  horses,  Mag- 
gie and  Lucy,  the  latter  coveted  by  royalty 
itself.  '  Lord  Rokeby,  his  neighbour,  called 
him  kinsman,'  writes  my  artless  chronicler, 
*  and  altogether  life  was  very  cheery.'  At 
Stowting  his  three  sons,  John,  Charles,  and 
Thomas  Frewen,  and  his  younger  daughter, 
Anna,  were  all  born  to  him ;  and  the  reader 
should  here  be  told  that  it  is  through  the  re- 
port of  this  second  Charles  (born  1801)  that  he 


io       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

has  been  looking  on  at  these  confused  passages 
of  family  history. 

In  the  year  1805  the  ruin  of  the  Jenkins  was 
begun.  It  was  the  work  of  a  fallacious  lady  al- 
ready mentioned,  Aunt  Anne  Frewen,  a  sister 
of  Mrs.  John.  Twice  married,  first  to  her  cousin 
Charles  Frewen,  clerk  to  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
Brunswick  Herald,  and  Usher  of  the  Black  Rod, 
and  secondly  to  Admiral  Buckner,  she  was  de- 
nied issue  in  both  beds,  and  being  very  rich — 
she  died  worth  about  6o,ooo/.,  mostly  in  land — 
she  was  in  perpetual  quest  of  an  heir.  The 
mirage  of  this  fortune  hung  before  successive 
members  of  the  Jenkin  family  until  her  death 
in  1825,  when  it  dissolved  and  left  the  latest 
Alnaschar  face  to  face  with  bankruptcy.  The 
grandniece,  Stephen's  daughter,  the  one  who 
had  not  *  married  imprudently,'  appears  to  have 
been  the  first ;  for  she  was  taken  abroad  by  the 
golden  aunt,  and  died  in  her  care  at  Ghent  in 
1792.  Next  she  adopted  William,  the  youngest 
of  the  five  nephews ;  took  him  abroad  with  her 
— it  seems  as  if  that  were  in  the  formula ;  was 
shut  up  with  him  in  Paris  by  the  Revolution ; 
brought  him  back  to  Windsor,  and  got  him  a 


Mrs.  Buckner  s  Fortune.  1 1 

place  in  the  King's  Body-Guard,  where  he  at- 
tracted the  notice  of  George  III.  by  his  pro- 
ficiency in  German.  In  1797,  being  on  guard  at 
St.  James's  Palace,  William  took  a  cold  which 
carried  him  off ;  and  Aunt  Anne  was  once  more 
left  heirless.  Lastly,  in  1805,  perhaps  moved  by 
the  Admiral,  who  had  a  kindness  for  his  old 
midshipman,  perhaps  pleased  by  the  good  looks 
and  the  good  nature  of  the  man  himself,  Mrs. 
Buckner  turned  her  eyes  upon  Charles  Jenkin. 
He  was  not  only  to  be  the  heir,  however,  he  was 
to  be  the  chief  hand  in  a  somewhat  wild  scheme 
of  family  farming.  Mrs.  Jenkin,  the  mother, 
contributed  164  acres  of  land;  Mrs.  Buckner, 
570,  some  at  Northiam,  some  farther  off ;  Charles 
let  one  half  of  Stowting  to  a  tenant,  and  threw 
the  other  and  various  scattered  parcels  into 
the  common  enterprise ;  so  that  the  whole 
farm  amounted  to  near  upon  a  thousand  acres, 
and  was  scattered  over  thirty  miles  of  country. 
The  ex-seaman  of  thirty-nine,  on  whose  wisdom 
and  ubiquity  the  scheme  depended,  was  to  live 
in  the  meanwhile  without  care  or  fear.  He  was 
to  check  himself  in  nothing ;  his  two  extrava- 
gances, valuable  horses  and  worthless  brothers, 


12       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

were  to  be  indulged  in  comfort ;  and  whether 
the  year  quite  paid  itself  or  not,  whether  suc- 
cessive years  left  accumulated  savings  or  only  a 
growing  deficit,  the  fortune  of  the  golden  aunt 
should  in  the  end  repair  all. 

On  this  understanding  Charles  Jenkin  trans- 
ported his  family  to  Church  House,  Northiam : 
Charles  the  second,  then  a  child  of  three,  among 
the  number.  Through  the  eyes  of  the  boy  we 
have  glimpses  of  the  life  that  followed  :  of  Ad- 
miral and  Mrs.  Buckner  driving  up  from  Wind- 
sor in  a  coach  and  six,  two  post-horses  and  their 
own  four  ;  of  the  house  full  of  visitors,  the  great 
roasts  at  the  fire,  the  tables  in  the  servants'  hall 
laid  for  thirty  or  forty  for  a  month  together ;  of 
the  daily  press  of  neighbours,  many  of  whom, 
Frew^ens,  Lords,  Bishops,  Batchellors,  and 
Dynes,  were  also  kinsfolk;  and  the  parties  '  un- 
der the  great  spreading  chestnuts  of  the  old  fore 
court,'  where  the  young  people  danced  and 
made  merry  to  the  music  of  the  village  band. 
Or  perhaps,  in  the  depth  of  winter,  the  father 
would  bid  young  Charles  saddle  his  pony  ;  they 
would  ride  the  thirty  miles  from  Northiam  to 
Stowting,  with  the  snow  to  the  pony's  saddle 


Fleemings  Father.  13 

girths,    and   be    received    by  the  .tenants   like 
princes. 

This  life  of  delights,  with  the  continual  visible 
comings  and  goings  of  the  golden  aunt,  was  well 
qualified  to  relax  the  fibre  of  the  lads.  John, 
the  heir,  a  yeoman  and  a  fox-hunter,  '  loud  and 
notorious  with  his  whip  and  spurs,'  settled  down 
into  a  kind  of  Tony  Lumpkin,  waiting  for  the 
shoes  of  his  father  and  his  aunt.  Thomas 
Frewen,  the  youngest,  is  briefly  dismissed  as  '  a 
handsome  beau ';  but  he  had  the  merit  or  the 
good  fortune  to  become  a  doctor  of  medicine,  so 
that  when  the  crash  came  he  was  not  empty-hand- 
ed for  the  war  of  life.  Charles,  at  the  day-school 
of  Northiam,  grew  so  well  acquainted  with  the 
rod,  that  his  floggings  became  matter  of  pleas- 
antry and  reached  the  ears  of  Admiral  Buckner. 
Hereupon  that  tall,  rough-voiced,  formidable 
uncle  entered  with  the  lad  into  a  covenant: 
every  time  that  Charles  was  thrashed  he  was  to 
pay  the  Admiral  a  penny ;  every  day  that  he 
escaped,  the  process  was  to  be  reversed.  '  I 
recollect,'  writes  Charles,  '  going  crying  to  my 
mother  to  be  taken  to  the  Admiral  to  pay  my 
debt.'  It  would  seem  by  these  terms  the  spec- 


14        Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

ulation  was  a  losing  one  ;  yet  it  is  probable  it 
paid  indirectly  by  bringing  the  boy  under  re- 
mark. The  Admiral  was  no  enemy  to  dunces  ; 
he  loved  courage,  and  Charles,  while  yet  little 
more  than  a  baby,  would  ride  the  great  horse 
into  the  pond.  Presently  it  was  decided  that 
here  was  the  stuff  of  a  fine  sailor;  and  at  an 
early  period  the  name  of  Charles  Jenkin  was 
entered  on  a  ship's  books. 

From  Northiam  he  was  sent  to  another  school 
at  Boonshill,  near  Rye,  where  the  master  took 
'  infinite  delight '  in  strapping  him.  '  It  keeps 
me  warm  and  makes  you  grow,'  he  used  to  say. 
And  the  stripes  were  not  altogether  wasted,  for 
the  dunce,  though  still  very  '  raw,'  made  prog- 
ress with  his  studies.  It  was  known,  moreover, 
that  he  was  going  to  sea,  always  a  ground  of 
pre-eminence  with  schoolboys  ;  and  in  his  case 
the  glory  was  not  altogether  future,  it  wore 
a  present  form  when  he  came  driving  to 
Rye  behind  four  horses  in  the  same  carriage 
with  ,'in  Admiral.  '  I  was  not  a  little  proud,  you 
may  believe,'  says  he. 

In  1814,  when  he  was  thirteen  years  of  age, 
he  was  carried  by  his  father  to  Chichester  to  the 


'  Charles  will  restore  the  old  Family?  15 

Bishop's  Palace.  The  Bishop  had  heard  from 
his  brother  the  Admiral  that  Charles  was  likely 
to  do  well,  and  had  an  order  from  Lord  Melville 
for  the  lad's  admission  to  the  Royal  Naval  Col- 
lege at  Portsmouth.  Both  the  Bishop  and  the 
Admiral  patted  him  on  the  head  and  said, 
'  Charles  will  restore  the  old  family ';  by  which 
I  gather  with  some  surprise  that,  even  in  these 
days  of  open  house  at  Northiam  and  golden 
hope  of  my  aunt's  fortune,  the  family  was  sup- 
posed to  stand  in  need  of  restoration.  But  the 
past  is  apt  to  look  brighter  than  nature,  above 
all  to  those  enamoured  of  their  genealogy ;  and 
the  ravages  of  Stephen  and  Thomas  must  have 
always  given  matter  of  alarm. 

What  with  the  flattery  of  bishops  and  admi- 
rals, the  fine  company  in  which  he  found 
himself  at  Portsmouth,  his  visits  home,  with 
their  gaiety  and  greatness  of  life,  his  visits 
to  Mrs.  Buckner  (soon  a  widow)  at  Windsor, 
where  he  had  a  pony  kept  for  him,  and  visit- 
ed at  Lord  Melville's  and  Lord  Harcourt's 
and  the  Leveson-Gowers,  he  began  to  have 
'bumptious  notions,'  and  his  head  was  'some- 
what turned  with  fine  people  ;  as  to  some  ex- 


1 6       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jen  kin. 

tent  it  remained  throughout  his  innocent  and 
honourable  life. 

In  this  frame  of  mind  the  boy  was  appointed 
to  the  Conqueror,  Captain  Davie,  humorously 
known  as  Gentle  Johnnie.  The  captain  had 
earned  this  name  by  his  style  of  discipline,  which 
would  have  figured  well  in  the  pages  of  Marryat : 
'  Put  the  prisoner's  head  in  a  bag  and  give  him 
another  dozen ! '  survives  as  a  specimen  of  his 
commands  ;  and  the  men  were  often  punished 
twice  or  thrice  in  a  week.  On  board  the  ship 
of  this  disciplinarian,  Charles  and  his  father  were 
carried  in  a  billy-boat  from  Sheerness  in  Decem- 
ber, 1816  :  Charles  with  an  outfit  suitable  to  his 
pretensions,  a  twenty-guinea  sextant  and  120 
dollars  in  silver,  which  were  ordered  into  the 
care  of  the  gunner.  '  The  old  clerks  and  mates,' 
he  writes, '  used  to  laugh  and  jeer  me  for  joining 
the  ship  in  a  billy-boat,  and  when  they  found  I 
was  from  Kent,  vowed  I  was  an  old  Kentish 
smuggler.  This  to  my  pride,  you  will  believe, 
was  not  a  little  offensive.' 

The  Conqueror  carried  the  flag  of  Vice-Ad- 
miral  Plampin,  commanding  at  the  Cape  and 
St.  Helena ;  and  at  that  all-important  islet,  in 


Life  on  the  Guard-ship.  1 7 

July,  1817,  she  relieved  the  flagship  of  Sir  Pul- 
teney  Malcolm.  Thus  it  befel  that  Charles  Jen- 
kin,  coming  too  late  for  the  epic  of  the  French 
wars,  played  a  small  part  in  the  dreary  and  dis- 
graceful afterpiece  of  St.  Helena.  Life  on  the 
guard-ship  was  onerous  and  irksome.  The  anchor 
was  never  lifted,  sail  never  made,  the  great  guns 
were  silent ;  none  was  allowed  on  shore  except 
on  duty  ;  all  day  the  movements  of  the  imperial 
captive  were  signalled  to  and  fro  ;  all  night  the 
boats  rowed  guard  around  the  accessible  por- 
tions of  the  coast.  This  prolonged  stagnation 
and  petty  watchfulness  in  what  Napoleon  him- 
self called  that  '  unchristian'  climate,  told  cruel- 
ly on  the  health  of  the  ship's  company.  In 
eighteen  months,  according  to  O'Meara,  the 
Conqueror  had  lost  one  hundred  and  ten  men 
and  invalided  home  one  hundred  and  seven, 
'  being  more  than  a  third  of  her  complement. 
It  does  not  seem  that  our  young  midshipman  so 
much  as  once  set  eyes  on  Bonaparte  ;  and  yet  in 
other  ways  Jenkin  was  more  fortunate  than 
some  of  his  comrades.  He  drew  in  water-colour  ; 
not  so  badly  as  his  father,  yet  ill  enough ;  and 
this  art  was  so  rare  aboard  the  Conqueror  that 


i 8       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

even  his  humble  proficiency  marked  him  out  and 
procured  him  some  alleviations.  Admiral  Plam- 
pin  had  succeeded  Napoleon  at  the  Briars ;  and 
here  he  had  young  Jenkin  staying  with  him  to 
make  sketches  of  the  historic  house.  One  of 
these  is  before  me  as  I  write,  and  gives  a  strange 
notion  of  the  arts  in  our  old  English  Navy.  Yet 
it  was  again  as  an  artist  that  the  lad  was  taken 
for  a  run  to  Rio,  and  apparently  for  a  second 
outing  in  a  ten-gun  brig.  These,  and  a  cruise 
of  six  weeks  to  windward  of  the  island  under- 
taken by  the  Conqueror  herself  in  quest  of  health, 
were  the  only  breaks  in  three  years  of  murderous 
inaction ;  and  at  the  end  of  that  period  Jenkin 
was  invalided  home,  having  '  lost  his  health  en- 
tirely.' 

As  he  left  the  deck  of  the  guard-ship  the  his- 
toric part  of  his  career  came  to  an  end.  For 
forty-two  years  he  continued  to  serve  his  coun- 
try obscurely  on  the  seas,  sometimes  thanked  for 
inconspicuous  and  honourable  services,  but  de- 
nied any  opportunity  of  serious  distinction.  He 
was  first  two  years  in  the  Larnc,  Captain  Tait, 
hunting  pirates  and  keeping  a  watch  on  the 
Turkish  and  Greek  squadrons  in  the  Archipelago 


Meets  King   Tom.  ig 

Captain  Tait  was  a  favourite  with  Sir  Thomas 
Maitland,  High  Commissioner  of  the  Ionian  Isl- 
ands— King  Tom  as  he  was  called— who  fre- 
quently took  passage  in  the  Larne.  King  Tom 
knew  every  inch  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  was 
a  terror  to  the  officers  of  the  watch.  He  would 
come  on  deck  at  night ;  and  with  his  broad 
Scotch  accent,  '  Well,  sir,'  he  would  say,  '  what 
depth  of  water  have  ye  ?  Well  now,  sound  ;  and 
ye'll  just  find  so  or  so  many  fathoms,'  as  the  case 
might  be;  and  the  obnoxious  passenger  was 
generally  right.  On  one  occasion,  as  the  ship 
was  going  into  Corfu,  Sir  Thomas  came  up  the 
hatchway  and  cast  his  eyes  towards  the  gallows. 
'  Bangham ' — Charles  Jenkin  heard  him  say  to 
his  aide-de-camp,  Lord  Bangham — '  where  the 
devil  is  that  other  chap?  I  left  four  fellows 
hanging  there  ;  now  I  can  only  see  three.  Mind 
there  is  another  there  to-morrow.'  And  sure 
enough  there  was  another  Greek  dangling  the 
next  day.  '  Captain  Hamilton,  of  the  Cam* 
brian,  kept  the  Greeks  in  order  afloat,'  writes 
my  author,  '  and  King  Tom  ashore.' 

From  1823  onward,  the  chief  scene  of  Charles 
Jenkin's  activities  was  in  the  West  Indies,  where 


2O       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jen  kin. 

he  was  engaged  off  and  on  till  1844,  now  as  a 
subaltern,  now  in  a  vessel  of  his  own,  hunting 
out  pirates, '  then  very  notorious '  in  the  Leeward 
Islands,  cruising  after  slavers,  or  carrying  dollars 
and  provisions  for  the  Government.  While  yet 
a  midshipman,  he  accompanied  Mr.  Cockburn 
to  Caraccas  and  had  a  sight  of  Bolivar.  In  the 
brigantine  Griffon^  which  he  commanded  in  his 
last  years  in  the  West  Indies,  he  carried  aid  to 
Guadeloupe  after  the  earthquake,  and  twice 
earned  the  thanks  of  Government :  once  for  an 
expedition  to  Nicaragua  to  extort,  under  threat 
of  a  blockade,  proper  apologies  and  a  sum  of 
money  due  to  certain  British  merchants ;  and 
once  during  an  insurrection  in  San  Domingo, 
for  the  rescue  of  certain  others  from  a  perilous 
imprisonment  and  the  recovery  of  a  '  chest  of 
money '  of  which  they  had  been  robbed.  Once, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  earned  his  share  of  public 
censure.  This  was  in  1837,  when  he  command- 
ed the  Romney  lying  in  the  inner  harbour  of 
Havannah.  The  Romney  was  in  no  proper  sense 
a  man-of-war ;  she  was  a  slave-hulk,  the  bonded 
warehouse  of  the  Mixed  Slave  Commission ; 
where  negroes,  captured  out  of  slavers  under 


The  Mixed  Slave  Commission.      21 

Spanish  colours,  were  detained  provisionally, 
till  the  Commission  should  decide  upon  their 
case  and  either  set  them  free  or  bind  them  to 
apprenticeship.  To  this  ship,  already  an  eye- 
sore to  the  authorities,  a  Cuban  slave  made  his 
escape.  The  position  was  invidious ;  on  one 
side  were  the  tradition  of  the  British  flag  and 
the  state  of  public  sentiment  at  home ;  on  the 
other,  the  certainty  that  if  the  slave  were  kept, 
the  Romney  would  be  ordered  at  once  out  of 
the  harbour,  and  the  object  of  the  Mixed  Com- 
mission compromised.  Without  consultation 
with  any  other  officer,  Captain  Jenkin  (then 
lieutenant)  returned  the  man  to  shore  and  took 
the  Captain-General's  receipt.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  approved  his  course ;  but  the  zealots  of 
the  anti-slave  trade  movement  (never  to  be 
named  without  respect)  were  much  dissatisfied  ; 
and  thirty-nine  years  later,  the  matter  was  again 
canvassed  in  Parliament,  and  Lord  Palmerston 
and  Captain  Jenkin  defended  by  Admiral  Er- 
skine  in  a  letter  to  the  Times  (March  13,  1876). 
In  1845,  while  still  lieutenant,  Charles  Jenkin 
acted  as  Admiral  Pigot's  flag  captain  in  the 
Cove  of  Cork,  where  there  were  some  thirty 


22       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

pennants ;  and  about  the  same  time,  closed  his 
career  by  an  act  of  personal  bravery.  He  had 
proceeded  with  his  boats  to  the  help  of  a  mer- 
chant vessel,  whose  cargo  of  combustibles  had 
taken  fire  and  was  smouldering  under  hatches ; 
his  sailors  were  in  the  hold,  where  the  fumes 
were  already  heavy,  and  Jenkin  was  on  deck 
directing  operations,  when  he  found  his  orders 
were  no  longer  answered  from  below :  he  jumped 
down  without  hesitation  and  slung  up  several 
insensible  men  with  his  own  hand.  For  this 
act,  he  received  a  letter  from  the  Lords  of  the 
Admiralty  expressing  a  sense  of  his  gallantry ; 
and  pretty  soon  after  was  promoted  Com- 
mander, superseded,  and  could  never  again  ob- 
tain employment. 

In  1828  or  1829,  Charles  Jenkin  was  in  the 
same  watch  with  another  midshipman,  Robert 
Colin  Campbell  Jackson,  who  introduced  him 
to  his  family  in  Jamaica.  The  father,  the  Hon- 
ourable Robert  Jackson,  Custos  Rotulorum  of 
Kingston,  came  of  a  Yorkshire  family,  said  tc 
be  originally  Scotch ;  and  on  the  mother's  side, 
counted  kinship  with  some  of  the  Forbeses. 
The  mother  was  Susan  Campbell,  one  of  the 


The  Ca mpbell-Jat  ksons.  2  3 

Campbells  of  Auchenbreck.  Her  father  Colin, 
a  merchant  in  Greenock,  is  said  to  have  been 
the  heir  to  both  the  estate  and  the  baronetcy ; 
he  claimed  neither,  which  casts  a  doubt  upon 
the  fact ;  but  he  had  pride  enough  himself,  and 
taught  enough  pride  to  his  family,  for  any 
station  or  descent  in  Christendom.  He  had 
four  daughters.  One  married  an  Edinburgh 
writer,  as  I  have  it  on  a  first  account — a  min- 
ister, according  to  another — a  man  at  least  of 
reasonable  station,  but  not  good  enough  for  the 
Campbells  of  Auchenbreck ;  and  the  erring  one 
was  instantly  discarded.  Another  married  an 
actor  of  the  name  of  Adcock,  whom  (as  I  re- 
ceive the  tale)  she  had  seen  acting  in  a  barn ; 
but  the  phrase  should  perhaps  be  regarded 
rather  as  a  measure  of  the  family  annoyance, 
than  a  mirror  of  the  facts.  The  marriage  was 
not  in  itself  unhappy ;  Adcock  was  a  gentleman 
by  birth  and  made  a  good  husband  ;  the  family 
reasonably  prospered,  and  one  of  the  daughters 
married  no  less  a  man  than  Clarkson  Stanfield. 
But  by  the  father,  and  the  two  remaining  Miss 
Campbells,  people  of  fierce  passions  and  a  truly 
Highland  pride,  the  derogation  was  bitterly  re- 


24       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

sented.  For  long  the  sisters  lived  estranged 
then,  Mrs.  Jackson  and  Mrs.  Adcock  were  rec- 
onciled for  a  moment,  only  to  quarrel  the  more 
fiercely;  the  name  of  Mrs.  Adcock  was  pro- 
scribed, nor  did  it  again  pass  her  sister's  lips, 
until  the  morning  when  she  announced  :  '  Mary 
Adcock  is  dead  ;  I  saw  her  in  her  shroud  last 
night.'  Second  sight  was  hereditary  in  the 
house;  and  sure  enough,  as  I  have  it  reported, 
on  that  very  night  Mrs.  Adcock  had  passed 
away.  Thus,  of  the  four  daughters,  two  had, 
according  to  the  idiotic  notions  of  their  friends, 
disgraced  themselves  in  marriage ;  the  others 
supported  the  honour  of  the  family  with  a  bet- 
ter grace,  and  married  West  Indian  magnates  of 
whom,  I  believe,  the  world  has  never  heard  and 
would  not  care  to  hear :  So  strange  a  thing  is 
this  hereditary  pride.  Of  Mr.  Jackson,  beyond 
the  fact  that  he  was  Fleeming's  grandfather,  I 
know  naught.  His  wife,  as  I  have  said,  was  a 
woman  of  fierce  passions ;  she  would  tie  her 
house  slaves  to  the  bed  and  lash  them  with  her 
own  hand  ;  and  her  conduct  to  her  wild  and 
down-going  sons,  was  a  mixture  of  almost 
insane  self-sacrifice  and  wholly  insane  violence 


Fleemings  Mother.  25 

of  temper.  She  had  three  sons  and  one 
daughter.  Two  of  the  sons  went  utterly  to 
ruin,  and  reduced  their  mother  to  poverty. 
The  third  went  to  India,  a  slim,  delicate 
lad,  and  passed  so  wholly  from  the  knowl- 
edge of  his  relatives  that  he  was  thought  to  be 
long  dead.  Years  later,  when  his  sister  was 
living  in  Genoa,  a  red-bearded  man  of  great 
strength  and  stature,  tanned  by  years  in  India, 
and  his  hands  covered  v/ith  barbaric  gems,  en- 
tered the  room  unannounced,  as  she  was  playing 
the  piano,  lifted  her  from  her  seat,  and  kissed 
her.  It  was  her  brother,  suddenly  returned  out 
of  a  past  that  was  never  very  clearly  under- 
stood, with  the  rank  of  general,  many  strange 
gems,  many  cloudy  stories  of  adventure,  and 
next  his  heart,  the  daguerreotype  of  an  Indian 
prince  with  whom  he  had  mixed  blood. 

The  last  of  this  wild  family,  the  daughter, 
Henrietta  Camilla,  became  the  wife  of  the  mid- 
shipman Charles,  and  the  mother  of  the  subject 
of  this  notice,  Fleeming  Jenkin.  She  was  a 
woman  of  parts  and  courage.  Not  beautiful, 
she  had  a  far  higher  gift,  the  art  of  seeming  so ; 
played  the  part  of  a  belle  in  society,  while  far 


2  6       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jen  kin. 

lovelier  women  were  left  unattended  ;  and  up  to 
old  age,  had  much  of  both  the  exigency  and 
the  charm  that  mark  that  character.  She  drew 
naturally,  for  she  had  no  training,  with  unusual 
skill ;  and  it  was  from  her,  and  not  from  the  two 
naval  artists,  that  Fleeming  inherited  his  eye 
and  hand.  She  played  on  the  harp  and  sang 
with  something  beyond  the  talent  of  an  amateur. 
At  the  age  of  seventeen,  she  heard  Pasta  in 
Paris ;  flew  up  in  a  fire  of  youthful  enthusiasm  ; 
and  the  next  morning,  all  alone  and  without  in- 
troduction, found  her  way  into  the  presence  of 
the  prima  donna  and  begged  for  lessons.  Pasta 
made  her  sing,  kissed  her  when  she  had  done, 
and  though  she  refused  to  be  her  mistress, 
placed  her  in  the  hands  of  a  friend.  Nor  was 
this  all ;  for  when  Pasta  returned  to  Paris,  she 
sent  for  the  girl  (once  at  least)  to  test  her  prog- 
ress. But  Mrs.  Jenkin's  talents  were  not  so  re- 
markable as  her  fortitude  and  strength  of  will ; 
and  it  was  in  an  art  for  which  she  had  no  nat- 
ural taste  (the  art  of  literature)  that  she  ap- 
peared before  the  public.  Her  novels,  though 
they  attained  and  merited  a  certain  popularity 
both  in  France  and  England,  are  a  measure  only 


Mrs.  Jenkins  dauntless  Courage.    27 

of  her  courage.  They  were  a  task,  not  a  be- 
loved task ;  they  were  written  for  money  in  days 
of  poverty,  and  they  served  their  end.  In  the 
least  thing  as  well  as  in  the  greatest,  in  every 
province  of  life  as  well  as  in  her  novels,  she  dis- 
played the  same  capacity  of  taking  infinite  pains, 
which  descended  to  her  son.  When  she  was 
about  forty  (as  near  as  her  age  was  known)  she 
lost  her  voice ;  set  herself  at  once  to  learn  the 
piano,  working  eight  hours  a  day ;  and  attained 
to  such  proficiency  that  her  collaboration  in 
chamber  music  was  courted  by  professionals. 
And  more  than  twenty  years  later,  the  old  lady 
might  have  been  seen  dauntlessly  beginning  the 
study  of  Hebrew.  This  is  the  more  ethereal 
part  of  courage ;  nor  was  she  wanting  in  the 
more  material.  Once  when  a  neighbouring 
groom,  a  married  man,  had  seduced  her  maid, 
Mrs.  Jenkin  mounted  her  horse,  rode  over  to 
the  stable  entrance  and  horsewhipped  the  man 
with  her  own  hand. 

How  a  match  came  about  between  this  talent- 
ed and  spirited  girl  and  the  young  midshipman, 
is  not  very  easy  to  conceive.  Charles  Jenkin 
was  one  of  the  finest  creatures  breathing ;  loy 


28       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

alty,  devotion,  simple  natural  piety,  boyish 
cheerfulness,  tender  and  manly  sentiment  in  the 
old  sailor  fashion,  were  in  him  inherent  and  in- 
extinguishable either  by  age,  suffering,  or  in- 
justice. He  looked,  as  he  was,  every  inch  a 
gentleman ;  he  must  have  been  everywhere 
notable,  even  among  handsome  men,  both  for 
his  face  and  his  gallant  bearing ;  not  so  much 
that  of  a  sailor,  you  would  have  said,  as  like  one 
of  those  gentle  and  graceful  soldiers  that,  to  this 
day,  are  the  most  pleasant  of  Englishmen  to 
see.  But  though  he  was  in  these  ways  noble, 
the  dunce  scholar  of  Northiam  was  to  the  end 
no  genius.  Upon  all  points  that  a  man  must 
understand  to  be  a  gentleman,  to  be  upright, 
gallant,  affectionate  and  dead  to  self,  Captain 
Jenkin  was  more  knowing  than  one  among  a 
thousand  ;  outside  of  that,  his  mind  'was  very 
largely  blank.  He  had  indeed  a  simplicity  that 
came  near  to  vacancy;  and  in  the  first  forty 
years  of  his  married  life,  this  want  grew  more 
accentuated.  In  both  families  imprudent  mar- 
riages had  been  the  rule ;  but  neither  Jenkin 
nor  Campbell  had  ever  entered  into  a  more  un- 
equal union.  It  was  the  captain's  good  looks, 


Father  and  Mother.  29 

we  may  suppose,  that  gained  for  him  this  eleva- 
tion ;  and  in  some  ways  and  for  many  years  of 
his  life,  he  had  to  pay  the  penalty.  His  wife, 
impatient  of  his  incapacity  and  surrounded  by 
brilliant  friends,  used  him  with  a  certain  con- 
tempt. She  was  the  managing  partner ;  the  life 
was  hers,  not  his;  after  his  retirement  they 
lived  much  abroad,  where  the  poor  captain,  who 
could  never  learn  any  language  but  his  own,  sat 
in  the  corner  mumchance ;  and  even  his  son, 
carried  away  by  his  bright  mother,  did  not  rec- 
ognise for  long  the  treasures  of  simple  chivalry 
that  lay  buried  in  the  heart  of  his  father.  Yet 
it  would  be  an  error  to  regard  this  marriage  as 
unfortunate.  It  not  only  lasted  long  enough  to 
justify  itself  in  a  beautiful  and  touching  epi- 
logue, but  it  gave  to  the  world  the  scientific 
work  and  what  (while  time  was)  were  of  far 
greater  value,  the  delightful  qualities  of  Fleem- 
ing  Jenkin.  The  Kentish-Welsh  family,  facile, 
extravagant,  generous  to  a  fault  and  far  from 
brilliant,  had  given  the  father,  an  extreme  ex- 
ample of  its  humble  virtues.  On  the  other  side, 
the  wild,  cruel,  proud,  and  somewhat  blackguard 
stock  of  the  Scotch  Campbell-Jacksons,  had  put 


30       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

forth,  in  the  person  of  the  mother,  all  its  force 
and  courage. 

The  marriage  fell  in  evil  days.  In  1823,  the 
bubble  of  the  Golden  Aunt's  inheritance  had 
burst.  She  died  holding  the  hand  of  the  nephew 
she  had  so  wantonly  deceived ;  at  the  last  she 
drew  him  down  and  seemed  to  bless  him,  surely 
with  some  remorseful  feeling ;  for  when  the  will 
was  opened,  there  was  not  found  so  much  as 
the  mention  of  his  name.  He  was  deeply  in 
debt ;  in  debt  even  to  the  estate  of  his  deceiver, 
so  that  he  had  to  sell  a  piece  of  land  to  clear 
himself.  '  My  dear  boy,'  he  said  to  Charles, 
'  there  will  be  nothing  left  for  you.  I  am  a 
ruined  man.'  And  here  follows  for  me  the 
strangest  part  of  this  story.  From  the  death  of 
the  treacherous  aunt,  Charles  Jenkin,  senior, 
had  still  some  nine  years  to  live  ;  it  was  perhaps 
too  late  for  him  to  turn  to  saving,  and  perhaps 
his  affairs  were  past  restoration.  But  his  famil)- 
at  least  had  all  this  while  to  prepare  ;  they  were 
still  young  men,  and  knew  what  they  had  to 
look  for  at  their  father's  death  ;  and  yet  when 
that  happened  in  September,  1831,  the  heir  was 
still  apathetically  waiting.  Poor  John,  the  days 


Fleemings   Uncle  John.  31 

of  his  whips  and  spurs,  and  Yeomanry  dinners, 
were  quite  over ;  and  with  that  incredible  soft- 
ness of  the  Jenkin  nature,  he  settled  down  for 
the  rest  of  a  long  life,  into  something  not  far 
removed  above  a  peasant.  The  mill  farm  at 
Stowting  had  been  saved  out  of  the  wreck ;  and 
here  he  built  himself  a  house  on  the  Mexican 
model,  and  made  the  two  ends  meet  with  rustic 
thrift,  gathering  dung  with  his  own  hands  upon 
the  road  and  not  at  all  abashed  at  his  employ- 
ment. In  dress,  voice,  and  manner,  he  fell  into 
mere  country  plainness ;  lived  without  the  least 
care  for  appearances,  the  least  regret  for  the 
past  or  discontentment  with  the  present ;  and 
when  he  came  to  die,  died  with  Stoic  cheerful- 
ness, announcing  that  he  had  had  a  comfortable 
time  and  was  yet  well  pleased  to  go.  One  would 
think  there  was  little  active  virtue  to  be  inherit- 
ed from  such  a  race ;  and  yet  in  this  same  vol- 
untary peasant,  the  special  gift  of  Fleeming 
Jenkin  was  already  half  developed.  The  old 
man  to  the  end  was  perpetually  inventing ;  his 
strange,  ill-spelled,  unpunctuated  correspond- 
ence is  full  (when  he  does  not  drop  into  cook- 
ery receipts)  of  pumps,  road  engines,  steam- 


32       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

diggers,  steam-ploughs,  and  steam-threshing 
machines;  and  I  have  it  on  Fleeming's  word 
that  what  he  did  was  full  of  ingenuity — only,  as 
if  by  some  cross  destiny,  useless.  These  disap- 
pointments he  not  only  took  with  imperturbable 
good  humour,  but  rejoiced  with  a  particular  reU 
ish  over  his  nephew's  success  in  the  same  field. 
'  I  glory  in  the  professor/  he  wrote  to  his  broth- 
er ;  and  to  Fleeming  himself,  with  a  touch  of 
simple  drollery,  '  I  was  much  pleased  with  your 
lecture,  but  why  did  you  hit  me  so  hard  with 
Conisure's '  (connoisseur's,  quasi  amateur's)  '  en- 
gineering? Oh,  what  presumption! — either  of 
you  or  wjj/self ! '  A  quaint,  pathetic  figure,  this 
of  uncle  John,  with  his  dung  cart  and  his  inven- 
tions ;  and  the  romantic  fancy  of  his  Mexican 
house ;  and  his  craze  about  the  Lost  Tribes 
which  seemed  to  the  worthy  man  the  key  of  all 
perplexities ;  and  his  quiet  conscience,  looking 
back  on  a  life  not  altogether  vain,  for  he  was  a 
good  son  to  his  father  while  his  father  lived,  and 
when  evil  days  approached,  he  had  proved  him- 
self a  cheerful  Stoic. 

It  followed  from  John's  inertia,  that  the  duty 
of  winding  up  the  estate  fell  into  the  hands  of 


The  Purchase  of  Slow  ling.         33 

Charles.  He  managed  it  with  no  more  skill 
than  might  be  expected  of  a  sailor  ashore, 
saved  a  bare  livelihood  for  John  and  nothing 
for  the  rest.  Eight  months  later,  he  married 
Miss  Jackson ;  and  with  her  money,  bought  in 
some  two-thirds  of  Stowting.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  little  family  history  which  I  have  been 
following  to  so  great  an  extent,  the  Captain 
mentions,  with  a  delightful  pride :  '  A  Court 
Baron  and  Court  Leet  are  regularly  held  by 
the  Lady  of  the  Manor,  Mrs.  Henrietta  Ca- 
milla Jenkin ';  and  indeed  the  pleasure  of  so 
describing  his  wife,  was  the  most  solid  benefit 
of  the  investment ;  for  the  purchase  was  heavily 
encumbered  and  paid  them  nothing  till  some 
years  before  their  death.  In  the  meanwhile, 
the  Jackson  family  also,  what  with  wild  sons, 
an  indulgent  mother  and  the  impending  eman- 
cipation of  the  slaves,  was  moving  nearer  and 
nearer  to  beggary ;  and  thus  of  two  doomed 
and  declining  houses,  the  subject  of  this  me- 
moir was  born,  heir  to  an  estate  and  to  no 
money,  yet  with  inherited  qualities  that  were 
to  make  him  known  and  loved. 


CHAPTER    II. 

1833—1851. 

Birth  and  Childhood— Edinburgh — Frankfort-on-the-Main — Paris— 
The  Revolution  of  1848— The  Insurrection— Flight  to  Italy- 
Sympathy  with  Italy — The  Insurrection  in  Genoa — A  Student  in 
Genoa— The  Lad  and  bis  Mother. 

TJENRY  CHARLES  FLEEMING  JEN- 
•*•  •*•  KIN  (Fleeming,  pronounced  Flemming, 
to  his  friends  and  family)  was  born  in  a  Gov- 
ernment building  on  the  coast  of  Kent,  near 
Dungeness,  where  his  father  was  serving  at  the 
time  in  the  Coastguard,  on  March  25,  1833,  and 
named  after  Admiral  Fleeming,  one  of  his  fa- 
ther's protectors  in  the  navy. 

His  childhood  was  vagrant  like  his  life. 
Once  he  was  left  in  the  care  of  his  grand- 
mother Jackson,  while  Mrs.  Jenkin  sailed  in 
her  husband's  ship  and  stayed  a  year  at  the 
Havannah.  The  tragic  woman  was  besides 
from  time  to  time  a  member  of  the  family 
she  was  in  distress  of  mind  and  reduced  in 
fortune  by  the  misconduct  of  her  sons ;  her 

(34) 


His  Childhood.  35 

destitution  and  solitude  made  it  a  recurring 
duty  to  receive  her,  her  violence  continually 
enforced  fresh  separations.  In  her  passion  of 
a  disappointed  mother,  she  was  a  fit  object  of 
pity ;  but  her  grandson,  who  heard  her  load  his 
own  mother  with  cruel  insults  and  reproaches, 
conceived  for  her  an  indignant  and  impatient 
hatred,  for  which  he  blamed  himself  in  later  life. 
It  is  strange  from  this  point  of  view  to  see  his 
childish  letters  to  Mrs.  Jackson ;  and  to  think 
that  a  man,  distinguished  above  all  by  stubborn 
truthfulness,  should  have  been  brought  up  to 
such  dissimulation.  But  this  is  of  course  un- 
avoidable in  life;  it  did  no  harm  to  Jenkin ; 
and  whether  he  got  harm  or  benefit  from  a  so 
early  acquaintance  with  violent  and  hateful 
scenes,  is  more  than  I  can  guess.  The  expe- 
rience, at  least,  was  formative;  and  in  judging 
his  character  it  should  not  be  forgotten.  But 
Mrs.  Jackson  was  not  the  only  stranger  in  their 
gates ;  the  Captain's  sister,  Aunt  Anna  Jenkin, 
lived  with  them  until  her  death ;  she  had  all  the 
Jenkin  beauty  of  countenance,  though  she  was 
unhappily  deformed  in  body  and  of  frail  health  ; 
and  she  even  excelled  her  gentle  and  ineffectual 


36       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

family  in  all  amiable  qualities.  So  that  each  of 
the  two  races  from  which  Fleeming  sprang,  had 
an  outpost  by  his  very  cradle ;  the  one  he  in- 
stinctively loved,  the  other  hated  ;  and  the  life- 
long war  in  his  members  had  begun  thus  early 
by  a  victory  for  what  was  best. 

We  can  trace  the  family  from  one  country 
place  to  another  in  the  south  of  Scotland  ;  where 
the  child  learned  his  taste  for  sport  by  riding 
home  the  pony  from  the  moors.  Before  he  was 
nine  he  could  write  such  a  passage  as  this  about 
a  Hallowe'en  observance :  '  I  pulled  a  middling- 
sized  cabbage-runt  with  a  pretty  sum  of  gold 
about  it.  No  witches  would  run  after  me  when 
I  was  sowing  my  hempseed  this  year ;  my  nuts 
blazed  away  together  very  comfortably  to  the 
end  of  their  lives,  and  when  mamma  put  hers  in 
which  were  meant  for  herself  and  papa  they 
blazed  away  in  the  like  manner.'  Before  he  was 
ten  he  could  write,  with  a  really  irritating  pre- 
cocity, that  he  had  been  '  making  some  pictures 
from  a  book  called  "  Les  Frangais  peints  par 
euxmemes."  ...  It  is  full  of  pictures  of  all 
classes,  with  a  description  of  each  in  French. 
The  pictures  are  a  little  caricatured,  but  not 


In  Edinburgh  and  Frankfort.       37 

much.'  Doubtless  this  was  only  an  echo  from 
his  mother,  but  it  shows  the  atmosphere  in 
which  he  breathed.  It  must  have  been  a  good 
change  for  this  art  critic  to  be  the  playmate  of 
Mary  Macdonald,  their  gardener's  daughter  at 
Barjarg,  and  to  sup  with  her  family  on  potatoes 
and  milk ;  and  Fleeming  himself  attached  some 
value  to  this  early  and  friendly  experience  of 
another  class. 

His  education,  in  the  formal  sense,  began  at 
Jedburgh.  Thence  he  went  to  the  Edinburgh 
Academy,  where  he  was  the  classmate  of  Tait 
and  Clerk  Maxwell,  bore  away  many  prizes,  and 
was  once  unjustly  flogged  by  Rector  Williams. 
He  used  to  insist  that  all  his  bad  schoolfellows 
had  died  early,  a  belief  amusingly  characteristic 
of  the  man's  consistent  optimism.  In  1846  the 
mother  and  son  proceeded  to  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main,  where  they  were  soon  joined  by  the  father, 
now  reduced  to  inaction  and  to  play  something 
like  third  fiddle  in  his  narrow  household.  The 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  had  deprived  them 
of  their  last  resource  beyond  the  half-pay  of  a 
captain  ;  and  life  abroad  was  not  only  desirable 
for  the  sake  of  Fleeming's  education,  it  was  al- 


38       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

most  enforced  by  reasons  of  economy.  But  it 
was,  no  doubt,  somewhat  hard  upon  the  captain. 
Certainly  that  perennial  boy  found  a  companion 
in  his  son ;  they  were  both  active  and  eager, 
both  willing  to  be  amused,  both  young,  if  not  in 
years,  then  in  character.  They  went  out  together 
on  excursions  and  sketched  old  castles,  sitting 
side  by  side ;  they  had  an  angry  rivalry  in  walk- 
ing, doubtless  equally  sincere  upon  both  sides; 
and  indeed  we  may  say  that  Fleeming  was  ex- 
ceptionally favoured,  and  that  no  boy  had  ever 
a  companion  more  innocent,  engaging,  gay,  and 
airy.  But  although  in  this  case  it  would  be  easy 
to  exaggerate  its  import,  yet,  in  the  Jenkin  fam- 
ily also,  the  tragedy  of  the  generations  was  pro- 
ceeding, and  the  child  was  growing  out  of  his 
father's  knowledge.  His  artistic  aptitude  was 
of  a  different  order.  Already  he  had  his  quick 
sight  of  many  sides  of  life ;  he  already  over- 
flowed with  distinctions  and  generalisations,  con- 
trasting the  dramatic  art  and  national  character 
of  England,  Germany,  Italy,  and  France.  If  he 
were  dull,  he  would  write  stories  and  poems.  '  I 
have  written,'  he  says  at  thirteen,  '  a  very  long 
story  in  heroic  measure,  300  lines,  and  another 


At  Paris.  39 

Scotch  story  and  innumerable  bits  of  poetry '; 
and  at  the  same  age  he  had  not  only  a  keen 
feeling  for  scenery,  but  could  do  something  with 
his  pen  to  call  it  up.  I  feel  I  do  always  less 
than  justice  to  the  delightful  memory  of  Captain 
Jenkin ;  but  with  a  lad  of  this  character,  cutting 
the  teeth  of  his  intelligence,  he  was  sure  to  fall 
into  the  background. 

The  family  removed  in  1847  to  Paris,  where 
Fleeming  was  put  to  school  under  one  Deluc. 
There  he  learned  French,  and  (if  the  captain  is 
right)  first  began  to  show  a  taste  for  mathemat- 
ics. But  a  far  more  important  teacher  than 
Deluc  was  at  hand;  the  year  1848,  so  moment- 
ous for  Europe,  was  momentous  also  for  Fleem- 
ing's  character.  The  family  politics  were  Liberal ; 
Mrs.  Jenkin,  generous  before  all  things,  was  sure 
to  be  upon  the  side  of  exiles ;  and  in  the  house 
of  a  Paris  friend  of  hers,  Mrs.  Turner— already 
known  to  fame  as  Shelley's  Cornelia  de  Boin- 
^ille — Fleeming  saw  and  heard  such  men  as 
Manin,  Gioberti,  and  the  Ruffinis.  He  was  thus 
prepared  to  sympathise  with  revolution ;  and 
when  the  hour  came,  and  he  found  himself  in 
the  midst  of  stirring  and  influential  events,  the 


40       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

lad's  whole  character  was  moved.  He  cone. 
sponded  at  that  time  with  a  young  Edinburgh 
friend,  one  Frank  Scott;  and  I  am  here  going 
to  draw  somewhat  largely  on  this  boyish  coire- 
spondence.  It  gives  us  at  once  a  picture  of  the 
Revolution  and  a  portrait  of  Jenkin  at  fifteen; 
not  so  different  (his  friends  will  think)  from  the 
Jenkin  of  the  end — boyish,  simple,  opinionated, 
delighting  in  action,  delighting  before  all  things 
in  any  generous  sentiment. 

'  February  23,  1848. 

'  When  at  7  o'clock  to-day  I  went  out,  I  met 
a  large  band  going  round  the  streets,  calling  on 
the  inhabitants  to  illuminate  their  houses,  and 
bearing  torches.  This  was  all  very  good  fun, 
and  everybody  was  delighted  ;  but  as  they  stop- 
ped lather  long  and  were  rather  turbulent  in  the 
Place  de  la  Madeleine,  near  where  we  live '  [in 
the  Rue  Caumartin]  '  a  squadron  of  dragoons 
came  up,  formed,  and  charged  at  a  hand-gallop. 
This  was  a  very  pretty  sight;  the  crowd  was 
not  too  thick,  so  they  easily  got  away ;  and  the 
dragoons  only  gave  blows  with  the  back  of  the 
sword,  which  hurt  but  did  not  wound.  I  was 
as  close  to  them  as  I  am  now  to  the  other  side 


The  Revolution  of  1848.  41 

of  the  table ;  it  was  rather  impressive,  however. 
At  the  second  charge  they  rode  on  the  pave- 
ment and  knocked  the  torches  out  of  the  fellows' 
hands ;  rather  a  shame,  too — wouldn't  be  stood 
in  England.  .  .  . 

[At]  '  ten  minutes  to  ten  ...  I  went  a  long 
way  along  the  Boulevards,  passing  by  the  'office 
of  Foreign  Affairs,  where  Guizot  lives,  and  where 
to-night  there  were  about  a  thousand  troops 
protecting  him  from  the  fury  of  the  populace. 
After  this  was  passed,  the  number  of  the  people 
thickened,  till  about  half  a  mile  further  on,  I  met 
a  troop  of  vagabonds,  the  wildest  vagabonds  in 
the  world — Paris  vagabonds,  well  armed,  having 
probably  broken  into  gunsmiths'  shops  and  taken 
the  guns  and  swords.  They  were  about  a  hun- 
dred. These  were  followed  by  about  a  thousand 
(I  am  rather  diminishing  than  exaggerating  num- 
bers all  through),  indifferently  armed  with  rusty 
sabres,  sticks,  etc.  An  uncountable  troop  of 
gentlemen,  workmen,  shopkeepers'  wives  (Paris 
women  dare  anything),  ladies'  maids,  common 
women — in  fact,  a  crowd  of  all  classes,  though 
by  far  the  greater  number  were  of  the  bet- 
ter dressed  class — followed.  Indeed,  it  was  a 


42       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

splendid  sight :  the  mob  in  front  chanting  the 
"Marseillaise"  the  national  war  hymn,  grave  and 
powerful,  sweetened  by  the  night  air — though 
night  in  these  splendid  streets  was  turned  into 
day,  every  window  was  filled  with  lamps,  dim 
torches  were  tossing  in  the  crowd  .  .  .  for  Gui- 
zot  has  late  this  night  given  in  his  resignation, 
and  this  was  an  improvised  illumination. 

'  I  and  my  father  had  turned  with  the  crowd, 
and  were  close  behind  the  second  troop  of  vaga- 
bonds. Joy  was  on  every  face.  I  remarked  to 
papa  that  "  I  would  not  have  missed  the  scene 
for  anything,  I  might  never  see  such  a  splendid 
one,"  when  plong  went  one  shot — every  face 
went  pale — r-r-r-r-r  went  the  whole  detachment, 
[and]  the  whole  crowd  of  gentlemen  and  ladies 
turned  and  cut.  Such  a  scene  ! — ladies,  gentle- 
men, and  vagabonds  went  sprawling  in  the  mud, 
not  shot  but  tripped  up;  and  those  that  went 
down  could  not  rise,  they  were  trampled  over. 
...  I  ran  a  short  time  straight  on  and  did  not 
fall,  then  turned  down  a  side  street,  ran  fifty 
yards  and  felt  tolerably  safe ;  looked  for  papa, 
did  not  see  him ;  so  walked  on  quickly,  giving 
the  news  as  I  went.'  [It  appears,  from  another 


The  Revolution  of  1848.  43 

letter,  the  boy  was  the  first  to  carry  word  of  the 
firing  to  the  Rue  St.  Honore1  ;  and  that  his  news 
wherever  he  brought  it  was  received  with  hur- 
rahs. It  was  an  odd  entrance  upon  life  for  a 
little  English  lad,  thus  to  play  the  part  of  rumour 
in  such  a  crisis  of  the  history  of  France.] 

'  But  now  a  new  fear  came  over  me.  I  had 
little  doubt  but  my  papa  was  safe,  but  my  fear 
was  that  he  should  arrive  at  home  before  me 
and  tell  the  story;  in  that  case  I  knew  my 
mamma  would  go  half  mad  with  fright,  so  on  I 
went  as  quick  as  possible.  I  heard  no  more  dis- 
charges. When  I  got  half  way  home,  I  found 
my  way  blocked  up  by  troops.  That  way  or  the 
Boulevards  I  must  pass.  In  the  Boulevards  they 
were  fighting,  and  I  was  afraid  all  other  passages 
might  be  blocked  up  ...  and  I  should  have  to 
sleep  in  a  hotel  in  that  case,  and  then  my  mamma 
— however,  after  a  long  dttour,  I  found  a  pas- 
sage and  ran  home,  and  in  our  street  joined 
papa. 

'  .  .  .  I'll  tell  you  to-morrow  the  other  facts 
gathered  from  newspapers  and  papa.  .  .  .  To- 
night I  have  given  you  what  I  have  seen  with 
my  own  eyes  an  hour  ago,  and  began  trembling 


44       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

with  excitement  and  fear.  If  I  have  been  too 
long  on  this  one  subject,  it  is  because  it  is  yet 
before  my  eyes. 

'  Monday,  24. 

'  It  was  that  fire  raised  the  people.  There  was 
fighting  all  through  the  night  in  the  Rue  Notre 
Dame  de  Lorette,  on  the  Boulevards  where  they 
had  been  shot  at,  and  at  the  Porte  St.  Denis. 
At  ten  o'clock,  they  resigned  the  house  of  the 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  (where  the  disastrous 
volley  was  fired)  to  the  people,  who  immediately 
took  possession  of  it.  I  went  to  school,  but 
[was]  hardly  there  when  the  row  in  that  quarter 
commenced.  Barricades  began  to  be  fixed. 
Everyone  was  very  grave  now  ;  the  externes 
went  away,  but  no  one  came  to  fetch  me,  so  I 
had  to  stay.  No  lessons  could  go  on.  A  troop 
of  armed  men  took  possession  of  the  barricades, 
so  it  was  supposed  I  should  have  to  sleep  there. 
The  revolters  came  and  asked  for  arms,  but 
Deluc  (head-master)  is  a  National  Guard,  and 
he  said  he  had  only  his  own  and  he  wanted 
them ;  but  he  said  he  would  not  fire  on  them. 
Then  they  asked  for  wine,  which  he  gave  thenit 


The  Revolution  of  1848.  45 

They  took  good  care  not  to  get  drunk,  knowing 
they  would  not  be  able  to  fight.  They  were 
very  polite  and  behaved  extremely  well. 

'About  12  o'clock  a  servant  came  for  a  boy 
who  lived  near  me,  [and]  Deluc  thought  it  best 
to  send  me  with  him.  We  heard  a  good  deal  of 
firing  near,  but  did  not  come  across  any  of  the 
parties.  As  we  approached  the  railway,  the 
barricades  were  no  longer  formed  of  palings, 
planks,  or  stones;  but  they  had  got  all  the  om- 
nibuses as  they  passed,  sent  the  horses  and  pas- 
sengers about  their  business,  and.  turned  them 
over.  A  double  row  of  overturned  coaches 
made  a  capital  barricade,  with  a  few  paving 
stones. 

'  When  I  got  home  I  found  to  my  astonish- 
ment that  in  our  fighting  quarter  it  was  much 
quieter.  Mamma  had  just  been  out  seeing  the 
troops  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  when  sud- 
denly the  Municipal  Guard,  now  fairly  exasper- 
ated, prevented  the  National  Guard  from  pro- 
ceeding, and  fired  at  them ;  the  National  Guard 
had  come  with  their  muskets  not  loaded,  but  at 
length  returned  the  fire.  Mamma  saw  the  Na- 
tional Guard  fire.  The  Municipal  Guard  were 


46       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

round  the  corner.  She  was  delighted  for  she 
saw  no  person  killed,  though  many  of  the  Mu- 
nicipals were 

'  I  immediately  went  out  with  my  papa  (mam- 
ma had  just  come  back  with  him)  and  went  to 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde.  There  was  an  enor- 
mous quantity  of  troops  in  the  Place.  Suddenly 
the  gates  of  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries  opened  : 
we  rushed  forward,  out  gallopped  an  enormous 
number  of  cuirassiers,  in  the  middle  of  which 
were  a  couple  of  low  carriages,  said  first  to  con- 
tain the  Count  de  Paris  and  the  Duchess  of  Or- 
leans, but  afterwards  they  said  it  was  the  King 
and  Queen  ;  and  then  I  heard  he  had  abdicated. 
I  returned  and  gave  the  news. 

'Went  out  again  up  the  Boulevards.  The 
house  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  was 
filled  with  people  and  " Hotel dn  Peuple"  written 
on  it ;  the  Boulevards  were  barricaded  with  fine 
old  trees  that  were  cut  down  and  stretched  all 
across  the  road.  We  went  through  a  great 
many  little  streets,  all  strongly  barricaded,  and 
sentinels  of  the  people  at  the  principal  of  them. 
The  streets  were  very  unquiet,  filled  with  armed 
men  and  women,  for  the  troops  had  followed 


The  Revolution  of  1848.  47 

the  ex- King  to  Neuilly  and  left  Paris  in  the 
power  of  the  people.  We  met  the  captain  of 
the  Third  Legion  of  the  National  Guard  (who 
had  principally  protected  the  people),  badly 
wounded  by  a  Municipal  Guard,  stretched  on  a 
litter.  He  was  in  possession  of  his  senses.  He 
was  surrounded  by  a  troop  of  men  crying  "  Our 
brave  captain — we  have  him  yet — he's  not 
dead!  Vive  la  Reforme!"  This  cry  was  re- 
sponded to  by  all,  and  every  one  saluted  him  as 
he  passed.  I  do  not  know  if  he  was  mortally 
wounded.  That  Third  Legion  has  behaved 
splendidly. 

'  I  then  returned,  and  shortly  afterwards  went 
out  again  to  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries.  They 
were  given  up  to  the  people  and  the  palace  was 
being  sacked.  The  people  were  firing  blank  car- 
tridges to  testify  their  joy,  and  they  had  a  can- 
non on  the  top  of  the  palace.  It  was  a  sight  to 
see  a  palace  sacked  and  armed  vagabonds  firing 
out  of  the  windows,  and  throwing  shirts,  papers, 
and  dresses  of  all  kinds  out  of  the  windows. 
They  are  not  rogues,  these  French ;  they  are 
not  stealing,  burning,  or  doing  much  harm.  In 
the  Tuileries  they  have  dressed  up  some  of  the 


48       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

statues,  broken  some,  and  stolen  nothing  but 
queer  dresses.  I  say,  Frank,  you  must  not  hate 
the  French  ;  hate  the  Germans  if  you  like.  The 
French  laugh  at  us  a  little,  and  call  out  Goddam 
in  the  streets ;  but  to-day,  in  civil  war,  when 
they  might  have  put  a  bullet  through  our  heads, 
I  never  was  insulted  once. 

'At  present  we  have  a  provisional  Govern- 
ment, consisting  of  Odion  \_sic\  Barrot,  Lamar- 
tine,  Marast,  and  some  others ;  among  them  a 
common  workman,  but  very  intelligent.  This  is 
a  triumph  of  liberty — rather ! 

'Now  then,  Frank,  what  do  you  think  of  it? 
I  in  a  revolution  and  out  all  day.  Just  think, 
what  fun  !  So  it  was  at  first,  till  I  was  fired  at 
yesterday ;  but  to-day  I  was  not  frightened,  but 
it  turned  me  sick  at  heart,  I  don't  know  why. 
There  has  been  no  great  bloodshed,  [though]  I 
certainly  have  seen  men's  blood  several  times. 
But  there's  something  shocking  to  see  a  whole 
armed  populace,  though  not  furious,  for  not  one 
single  shop  has  been  broken  open,  except  the 
gunsmiths'  shops,  and  most  of  the  arms  will 
probably  be  taken  back  again.  For  the  French 
have  no  cupidity  in  their  nature  ;  they  don't  like 


The  Revolution  of  1848.  49 

to  steal — it  is  not  in  their  nature.  I  shall  send 
this  letter  in  a  day  or  two,  when  I  am  sure  the 
post  will  go  again.  I  know  I  have  been  a  long 
time  writing,  but  I  hope  you  will  find  the  matter 
of  this  letter  interesting,  as  coming  from  a  per- 
son resident  on  the  spot ;  though  probably  you 
don't  take  much  interest  in  the  French,  but  I 
can  think,  write,  and  speak  on  no  other  subject. 

'  Feb.  25. 

'  There  is  no  more  fighting,  the  people  have 
conquered ;  but  the  barricades  are  still  kept  up, 
and  the  people  are  in  arms,  more  than  ever  fear- 
ing some  new  act  of  treachery  on  the  part  of  the 
ex-King.  The  fight  where  I  was  was  the  prin- 
cipal cause  of  the  Revolution.  I  was  in  little 
danger  from  the  shot,  for  there  was  an  immense 
crowd  in  front  of  me,  though  quite  within  gun- 
shot. [By  another  letter,  a  hundred  yards 
from  the  troops.]  I  wished  I  had  stopped 
there. 

'  The  Paris  streets  are  filled  with  the  most  ex- 
traordinary crowds  of  men,  women  and  children, 
ladies  and  gentlemen.  Every  person  joyful. 
The  bands  ot  armed  men  are  perfectly  polite. 


50       Memoir  of  Flecming  Jenkin* 

Mamma  and  aunt  to-day  walked  through  armed 
crowds  alone,  that  were  firing  blank  cartridges  in 
all  directions.  Every  person  made  way  with 
the  greatest  politeness,  and  one  common  man 
with  a  blouse,  coming  by  accident  against  her 
immediately  stopped  to  beg  her  pardon  in  the 
politest  manner.  There  are  few  drunken  men. 
The  Tuileries  is  still  being  run  over  by  the  peo- 
ple ;  they  only  broke  two  things,  a  bust  of  Louis 
Philippe  and  one  of  Marshal  Bugeaud,  who  fired 
on  the  people 

'  I  have  been  out  all  day  again  to-day,  and 
precious  tired  I  am.  The  Republican  party 
seem  the  strongest,  and  are  going  about  with 
red  ribbons  in  their  button-holes 

'The  title  of  "Mister"  is  abandoned;  they 
say  nothing  but  "  Citizen,"  and  the  people  are 
shaking  hands  amazingly.  They  have  got  to 
the  top  of  the  public  monuments,  and,  mingling 
with  bronze  or  stone  statues,  five  or  six  make  a 
sort  of  tableau  vivant,  the  top  man  holding  up 
the  red  flag  of  the  Republic ;  and  right  well 
they  do  it,  and  very  picturesque  they  look.  I 
think  I  shall  put  this  letter  in  the  post  to-mor- 
row as  we  got  a  letter  to-night. 


The  Revolution  of  1848.  51 

(On  Envelope.) 

1  M.  Lamartine  has  now  by  his  eloquence  con- 
quered the  whole  armed  crowd  of  citizens 
threatening  to  kill  him  if  he  did  not  immedi- 
ately proclaim  the  Republic  and  red  flag.  He 
said  he  could  not  yield  to  the  citizens  of  Paris 
alone,  that  the  whole  country  must  be  consulted," 
that  he  chose  the  tricolour,  for  it  had  followed 
and  accompanied  the  triumphs  of  France  all 
over  the  world,  and  that  the  red  flag  had  only 
been  dipped  in  the  blood  of  the  citizens.  For 
sixty  hours  he  has  been  quieting  the  people: 
he  is  at  the  head  of  everything.  Don't  be  prej- 
udiced, Frank,  by  what  you  see  in  the  papers. 
The  French  have  acted  nobly,  splendidly  ;  there 
has  been  no  brutality,  plundering,  or  stealing. 
...  I  did  not  like  the  French  before ;  but  in 
this  respect  they  are  the  finest  people  in  the 
world.  I  am  so  glad  to  have  been  here.' 

And  there  one  could  wish  to  stop  with  this 
apotheosis  of  liberty  and  order  read  with  the 
generous  enthusiasm  of  a  boy ;  but  as  the  reader 
knows,  it  was  but  the  first  act  of  the  piece.  The 
letters,  vivid  as  they  are,  written  as  they  were 


52       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

by  a  hand  trembling  with  fear  and  excitement, 
yet  do  injustice,  in  their  boyishness  of  tone,  to 
the  profound  effect  produced.  At  the  sound  of 
these  songs  and  shot  of  cannon,  the  boy's  mind 
awoke.  He  dated  his  own  appreciation  of  the 
art  of  acting  from  the  day  when  he  saw  and 
heard  Rachel  recite  the  ' Marseillaise'  at  the 
Frangais,  the  tricolour  in  her  arms.  What  is 
still  more  strange,  he  had  been  up  to  then  in- 
vincibly indifferent  to  music,  insomuch  that  he 
could  not  distinguish  'God  save  the  Queen' 
from  '  Bonnie  Dundee ';  and  now,  to  the  chant- 
ing of  the  mob,  he  amazed  his  family  by  learn- 
ing and  singing  'Mourir  pour  la  Patrie'  But 
the  letters,  though  they  prepare  the  mind  for 
no  such  revolution  in  the  boy's  tastes  and  feel- 
ings, are  yet  full  of  entertaining  traits.  Let  the 
reader  note  Fleeming's  eagerness  to  influence 
his  friend  Frank,  an  incipient  Tory  (no  less)  as 
further  history  displayed ;  his  unconscious  in- 
difference to  his  father  and  devotion  to  his 
mother,  betrayed  in  so  many  significant  ex- 
pressions and  omissions;  the  sense  of  dignity 
of  this  diminutive  '  person  resident  on  the  spot,' 
who  was  so  happy  as  to  escape  insult ;  and  the 


A  Born  Optimist.  53 

strange  picture  of  the  household  —  father, 
mother,  son,  and  even  poor  Aunt  Anna — all 
day  in  the  streets  in  the  thick  of  this  rough 
business,  and  the  boy  packed  off  alone  to  school 
in  a  distant  quarter  on  the  very  morrow  of  the 
massacre. 

They  had  all  the  gift  of  enjoying  life's  texture 
as  it  comes ;  they  were  all  born  optimists.  The 
name  of  liberty  was  honoured  in  that  family,  its 
spirit  also,  but  within  stringent  limits  ;  and  some 
of  the  foreign  friends  of  Mrs.  Jenkin  were,  as  I 
have  said,  men  distinguished  on  the  Liberal 
side.  Like  Wordsworth,  they  beheld 

France  standing  on  the  top  of  golden  hours 
And  human  nature  seeming  born  again. 

At  once,  by  temper  and  belief,  they  were  formed 
to  find  their  element  in  such  a  decent  and  whig- 
gish  convulsion,  spectacular  in  its  course,  mod. 
erate  in  its  purpose.  For  them, 

Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive, 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven. 

And   I   cannot   but   smile  when    I    think   that 


54       Memoir  of  Flceming  Jenkin. 

(again  like  Wordsworth)  they  should  have  so 
specially  disliked  the  consequence. 

It  came  upon  them  by  surprise.  Liberal 
friends  of  the  precise  right  shade  of  colour  had 
assured  them,  in  Mrs.  Turner's  drawing-room, 
that  all  was  for  the  best ;  and  they  rose  on  Jan- 
uary 23  without  fear.  About  the  middle  of  the 
day  they  heard  the  sound  of  musketry,  and  the 
next  morning  they  were  wakened  by  the  can- 
nonade. The  French,  who  had  behaved  so 
'  splendidly/  pausing,  at  the  voice  of  Lamar- 
tine,  just  where  judicious  Liberals  could  have 
desired — the  French,  who  had  *  no  cupidity  in 
their  nature,'  were  now  about  to  play  a  varia- 
tion on  the  theme  rebellion.  The  Jenkins  took 
refuge  in  the  house  of  Mrs.  Turner,  the  house 
of  the  false  prophets,  '  Anna  going  with  Mrs. 
Turner,  that  she  might  be  prevented  speaking 
English,  Fleeming,  Miss  H.  and  I  (it  is  .he 
mother  who  writes)  walking  together.  As  we 
reached  the  Rue  de  Clichy,  the  report  of  the 
cannon  sounded  close  to  our  ears  and  made  our 
hearts  sick,  I  assure  you.  The  fighting  was  at 
the  barrier  Rochechouart,  a  few  streets  off. 
All  Saturday  and  Sunday  we  were  a  prey  to 


The  Paris  Insurrection.  55 

great  alarm,  there  came  so  many  reports  that 
the  insurgents  were  getting  the  upper  hand. 
One  could  tell  the  state  of  affairs  from  the  ex- 
treme quiet  or  the  sudden  hum  in  the  street. 
When  the  news  was  bad,  all  the  houses  closed 
and  the  people  disappeared ;  when  better,  the 
doors  half  opened  and  you  heard  the  sound  of 
men  again.  From  the  upper  windows  we  could 
see  each  discharge  from  the  Bastille — I  mean 
the  smoke  rising  —  and  also  the  flames  and 
smoke  from  the  Boulevard  la  Chapelle.  We 
were  four  ladies,  and  only  Fleeming  by  way  of 
a  man,  and  difficulty  enough  we  had  to  keep 
him  from  joining  the  National  Guards  —  his 
pride  and  spirit  were  both  fired.  You  cannot 
picture  to  yourself  the  multitudes  of  soldiers, 
guards,  and  armed  men  of  all  sorts  we  watched 
— not  close  to  the  window,  however,  for  such 
havoc  had  been  made  among  them  by  the  firing 
from  the  windows,  that  as  the  battalions  marched 
by,  they  cried,  "  Fermez  vos  fenetres  ! "  and  it 
was  very  painful  to  watch  their  looks  of  anxiety 
and  suspicion  as  they  marched  by.' 

'  The  Revolution,'  writes  Fleeming  to  Frank 
Scott,  'was  quite   delightful:    getting   popped 


56       Memoir  of  Fleeming 

at  and  run  at  by  horses,  and  giving  sous  fof 
the  wounded  into  little  boxes  guarded  by  the 
raggedest,  picturesquest,  delightfullest,  senti- 
nels ;  but  the  insurrection !  ugh,  I  shudder  to 
think  at  \sic~\  it.'  He  found  it  '  not  a  bit  of  fun 
sitting  boxed  up  in  the  house  four  days  almost 
....  I  was  the  only  gentleman  to  four  ladies, 
and  didn't  they  keep  me  in  order!  I  did  not 
dare  to  show  my  face  at  a  window,  for  fear  of 
catching  a  stray  ball  or  being  forced  to  enter 
the  National  Guard ;  [for]  they  would  have  it 
I  was  a  man  full-grown,  French,  and  every  way 
fit  to  fight.  And  my  mamma  was  as  bad  as  any 
of  them ;  she  that  told  me  I  was  a  coward  last 
time  if  I  stayed  in  the  house  a  quarter  of  an 
hour!  But  I  drew,  examined  the  pistols,  of 
which  I  found  lots  with  caps,  powder,  and 
ball,  while  sometimes  murderous  intentions  of 
killing  a  dozen  insurgents  and  dying  violently 

overpowered  by  numbers '  We  may  drop 

this  sentence  here :  under  the  conduct  of  its 
boyish  writer,  it  was  to  reach  no  legitimate 
end. 

Four  days  of  such  a  discipline  had  cured  the 
family  of  Paris ;  the  same  year  Fleeming  was  to 


Flight  to  Italy.  57 

write,  in  answer  apparently  to  a  question  of 
Frank  Scott's,  '  I  could  find  no  national  game 
in  France  but  revolutions ';  and  the  witticism 
was  justified  in  their  experience.  On  the  first 
possible  day,  they  applied  for  passports,  and 
were  advised  to  take  the  road  to  Geneva.  It 
appears  it  was  scarce  safe  to  leave  Paris  for 
England.  Charles  Reade,  with  keen  dramatic 
gusto,  had  just  smuggled  himself  out  of  that 
city  in  the  bottom  of  a  cab.  English  gold  had 
been  found  on  the  insurgents,  the  name  of  Eng- 
land was  in  evil  odour;  and  it  was  thus — for 
strategic  reasons,  so  to  speak — that  Fleeming 
found  himself  on  the  way  to  that  Italy  where 
he  was  to  complete  his  education,  and  for  which 
he  cherished  to  the  end  a  special  kindness. 

It  was  in  Genoa  they  settled ;  partly  for  the 
sake  of  the  captain,  who  might  there  find  naval 
comrades;  partly  because  of  the  Ruffinis,  who 
had  been  friends  of  Mrs.  Jenkin  in  their  time 
of  exile  and  were  now  considerable  men  at 
home ;  partly,  in  fine,  with  hopes  that  Fleem- 
ing might  attend  the  University ;  in  prepara- 
tion for  which  he  was  put  at  once  to  school. 
It  was  the  year  of  Novara;  Mazzini  was  in 


58       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

Rome ;  the  dry  bones  of  Italy  were  moving  ; 
and  for  people  of  alert  and  liberal  sympathies 
the  time  was  inspiriting.  What  with  exiles 
turned  Ministers  of  State,  universities  thrown 
open  to  Protestants,  Fleeming  himself  the  first 
Protestant  student  in  Genoa,  and  thus,  as  his 
mother  writes,  '  a  living  instance  of  the  prog- 
ress of  liberal  ideas' — it  was  little  wonder  if  the 
enthusiastic  young  woman  and  the  clever  boy 
were  heart  and  soul  upon  the  side  of  Italy.  It 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  they  were  both  on 
their  first  visit  to  that  country ;  the  mother  still 
'  child  enough '  to  be  delighted  when  she  saw 
'  real  monks ';  and  both  mother  and  son  thrill- 
ing with  the  first  sight  of  snowy  Alps,  the  blue 
Mediterranean,  and  the  crowded  port  and  the 
palaces  of  Genoa.  Nor  was  their  zeal  without 
knowledge.  Rufrlni,  deputy  for  Genoa  and 
soon  to  be  head  of  the  University,  was  at 
their  side ;  and  by  means  of  him  the  family 
appear  to  have  had  access  to  much  Italian  so- 
ciety. To  the  end,  Fleeming  professed  his  ad- 
miration of  the  Piedmontese  and  his  unalter- 
able confidence  in  the  future  of  Italy  under 
their  conduct;  for  Victor  Emanuel,  Cavour, 


Sympathy  with  Italy.  59 

the  first  La  Marmora  and  Garibaldi,  he  had 
varying  degrees  of  sympathy  and  praise :  per- 
haps highest  for  the  King,  whose  good  sense 
and  temper  filled  him  with  respect — perhaps 
least  for  Garibaldi,  whom  he  loved  but  yet 
mistrusted. 

But  this  is  to  look  forward :  these  were  the 
days  not  of  Victor  Emanuel  but  of  Charles  Al- 
bert ;  and  it  was  on  Charles  Albert  that  mother 
and  son  had  now  fixed  their  eyes  as  on  the 
sword-bearer  of  Italy.  On  Fleeming's  sixteenth 
birthday,  they  were,  the  mother  writes,  '  in 
great  anxiety  for  news  from  the  army.  You 
can  have  no  idea  what  it  is  to  live  in  a  country 
where  such  a  struggle  is  going  on.  The  inter- 
est is  one  that  absorbs  all  others.  We  eat, 
drink,  and  sleep  to  the  noise  of  drums  and 
musketry.  You  would  enjoy  and  almost  admire 
Fleeming's  enthusiasm  and  earnestness — and 
courage,  I  may  say — for  we  are  among  the  small 
minority  of  English  who  side  with  the  Italians. 
The  other  day,  at  dinner  at  the  Consul's,  boy 
as  he  is,  and  in  spite  of  my  admonitions,  Fleem- 
ing  defended  the  Italian  cause,  and  so  well  that 
he  "tripped  up  the  heels  of  his  adversary" 


60       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jen  kin. 

simply  from  being  well-informed  on  the  subject 
and  honest.  He  is  as  true  as  steel,  and  for  no 

one  will  he  bend  right  or  left Do  not 

fancy  him  a  Bobadil,'  she  adds,  '  he  is  only 
a  very  true,  candid  boy.  I  am  so  glad  he 
remains  in  all  respects  but  information  a  great 
child.' 

If  this  letter  is  correctly  dated,  the  cause  was 
already  lost  and  the  King  had  already  abdicated 
when  these  lines  were  written.  No  sooner  did 
the  news  reach  Genoa,  than  there  began  '  tumult- 
uous movements ' ;  and  the  Jenkins'  received 
hints  it  would  be  wise  to  leave  the  city.  But 
they  had  friends  and  interests  ;  even  the  captain 
had  English  officers  to  keep  him  company,  for 
Lord  Hardwicke's  ship,  the  Vengeance,  lay  in 
port ;  and  supposing  the  danger  to  be  real,  I 
cannot  but  suspect  the  whole  family  of  a  di- 
vided purpose,  prudence  being  possibly  weaker 
than  curiosity.  Stay,  at  least,  they  did,  and 
thus  rounded  their  experience  of  the  revo- 
lutionary year.  On  Sunday,  April  i,  Fleeming 
and  the  captain  went  for  a  ramble  beyond  the 
walls,  leaving  Aunt  Anna  and  Mrs.  Jenkin  to 
walk  on  the  bastions  with  some  friends.  On 


Insurrection  of  Genoa.  61 

the  way  back,  this  party  turned  aside  to  rest  in 
the  Church  of  the  Madonna  delle  Grazie.  '  We 
had  remarked,'  writes  Mrs.  Jenkin,  '  the  entire 
absence  of  sentinels  on  the  ramparts,  and  how 
the  cannons  were  left  in  solitary  state ;  and  I 
had  just  remarked  "  How  quiet  everything  is!  " 
when  suddenly  we  heard  the  drums  begin  to 
beat  and  distant  shouts.  Accustomed  as  we  are 
to  revolutions,  we  never  thought  of  being  fright- 
ened.' For  all  that,  they  resumed  their  return 
home.  On  the  way  they  saw  men  running  and 
vociferating,  but  nothing  to  indicate  a  general 
disturbance,  until,  near  the  Duke's  palace,  they 
came  upon  and  passed  a  shouting  mob  dragging 
along  with  it  three  cannon.  It  had  scarcely 
passed  before  they  heard  '  a  rushing  sound '; 
one  of  the  gentlemen  thrust  back  the  party  of 
ladies  under  a  shed,  and  the  mob  passed  again. 
A  fine-looking  young  man  was  in  their  hands ; 
and  Mrs.  Jenkin  saw  him  with  his  mouth  open 
as  if  he  sought  to  speak,  saw  him  tossed  from 
one  to  another  like  a  ball,  and  then  saw  him  no 
more.  '  He  was  dead  a  few  instants  after,  but 
the  crowd  hid  that  terror  from  us.  My  knees 
shook  under  me  and  my  sight  left  me.'  With 


62       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

this  street  tragedy,  the  curtain  rose  upon  their 
second  revolution. 

The  attack  on  Spirito  Santo,  and  the  capitu- 
lation and  departure  of  the  troops  speedily  fol- 
lowed. Genoa  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Repub- 
licans, and  now  came  a  time  when  the  English 
residents  were  in  a  position  to  pay  some  return 
for  hospitality  received.  Nor  were  they  back- 
ward. Our  Consul  (the  same  who  had  the  bene- 
fit of  correction  from  Fleeming)  carried  the  In- 
tendente  on  board  the  Vengeance,  escorting  him 
through  the  streets,  getting  along  with  him  on 
board  a  shore  boat,  and  when  the  insurgents 
levelled  their  muskets,  standing  up  and  naming 
himself,  '  Console  Inglese?  A  friend  of  the  Jen- 
kins',  Captain  Glynne,  had  a  more  painful,  if  a 
less  dramatic  part.  One  Colonel  Nosozzo  had 
been  killed  (I  read)  while  trying  to  prevent  his 
own  artillery  from  firing  on  the  mob ;  but  in 
that  hell's  cauldron  of  a  distracted  city,  there 
were  no  distinctions  made,  and  the  Colonel's 
widow  was  hunted  for  her  life.  In  her  grief  and 
peril,  the  Glynnes  received  and  hid  her ;  Cap- 
tain Glynne  sought  and  found  her  husband's 
body  among  the  slain,  saved  it  for  two  days, 


Insurrection  of  Genoa.  63 

brought  the  widow  a  lock  of  the  dead  man's 
hair ;  but  at  last,  the  mob  still  strictly  search- 
ing, seems  to  have  abandoned  the  body,  and 
conveyed  his  guest  on  board  the  Vengeance. 
The  Jenkins  also  had  their  refugees,  the  family 
of  an  employe  threatened  by  a  decree.  '  You 
should  have  seen  me  making  a  Union  Jack  to 
nail  over  our  door/  writes  Mrs.  Jenkin.  '  I 
never  worked  so  fast  in  my  life.  Monday  and 
Tuesday,'  she  continues,  '  were  tolerably  quiet, 
our  hearts  beating  fast  in  the  hope  of  La  Mar- 
mora's approach,  the  streets  barricaded,  and 
none  but  foreigners  and  women  allowed  to  leave 
the  city.'  On  Wednesday,  La  Marmora  came 
indeed,  but  in  the  ugly  form  of  a  bombard- 
ment ;  and  that  evening  the  Jenkins  sat  with- 
out lights  about  their  drawing-room  window, 
4  watching  the  huge  red  flashes  of  the  cannon ' 
from  the  Brigato  and  La  Specula  forts,  and 
hearkening,  not  without  some  awful  pleasure,  to 
the  thunder  of  the  cannonade. 

Lord  Hardwicke  intervened  between  the  reb- 
els and  La  Marmora;  and  there  followed  a 
troubled  armistice,  filled  with  the  voice  of  panic. 
Now  the  Vengeance  was  known  to  be  cleared 


64       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

for  action ;  now  it  was  rumoured  that  the  galley 
slaves  were  to  be  let  loose  upon  the  town,  and 
now  that  the  troops  would  enter  it  by  storm. 
Crowds,  trusting  in  the  Union  Jack  over  the 
Jenkins'  door,  came  to  beg  them  to  receive  their 
linen  and  other  valuables ;  nor  could  their  in- 
stances be  refused ;  and  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
bustle  and  alarm,  piles  of  goods  must  be  ex- 
amined and  long  inventories  made.  At  last  the 
captain  decided  things  had  gone  too  far.  He 
himself  apparently  remained  to  watch  over  the 
linen ;  but  at  five  o'clock  on  the  Sunday  morn- 
ing, Aunt  Anna,  Fleeming,  and  his  mother  were 
rowed  in  a  pour  of  rain  on  board  an  English 
merchantman,  to  suffer  '  nine  mortal  hours  of 
agonising  suspense.'  With  the  end  of  that  time, 
peace  was  restored.  On  Tuesday  morning  offi- 
cers with  white  flags  appeared  on  the  bastions ; 
then,  regiment  by  regiment,  the  troops  marched 
in,  two  hundred  men  sleeping  on  the  ground 
floor  of  the  Jenkins'  house,  thirty  thousand  in 
all  entering  the  city,  but  without  disturbance, 
old  La  Marmora  being  a  commar.der  of  a 
Roman  sternness. 

With  the  return  of  quiet,  and  the  reopening 


A  Student  in  Genoa.  65 

of  the  universities,  we  behold  a  new  character, 
Signor  Flaminio:  the  professors,  it  appears, 
made  no  attempt  upon  the  Jenkin  ;  and  thus 
readily  italianised  the  Fleeming.  He  came  well 
recommended  ;  for  their  friend  Ruffini  was  then, 
or  soon  after,  raised  to  be  the  head  of  the  Uni- 
versity ;  and  the  professors  were  very  kind  and 
attentive,  possibly  to  Ruffini's  protegtf,  perhaps 
also  to  the  first  Protestant  student.  It  was  no 
joke  for  Signor  Flaminio  at  first;  certificates 
had  to  be  got  from  Paris  and  from  Rector  Will- 
iams; the  classics  must  be  furbished  up  at 
home  that  he  might  follow  Latin  lectures ;  ex- 
aminations bristled  in  the  path,  the  entrance 
examination  with  Latin  and  English  essay,  and 
oral  trials  (much  softened  for  the  foreigner)  in 
Horace,  Tacitus,  and  Cicero,  and  the  first  Uni- 
versity examination  only  three  months  later,  in 
Italian  eloquence,  no  less,  and  other  wider  sub- 
jects. On  one  point  the  first  Protestant  student 
was  moved  to  thank  his  stars :  that  there  was 
no  Greek  required  for  the  degree.  Little  did  he 
think,  as  he  set  down  his  gratitude,  how  much, 
in  later  life  and  among  cribs  and  dictionaries, 
he  was  to  lament  this  circumstance ;  nor  how 


66       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

much  of  that  later  life  he  was  to  spend  acquir- 
ing, with  infinite  toil,  a  shadow  of  what  he 
might  then  have  got  with  ease  and  fully.  But 
if  his  Genoese  education  was  in  this  particular 
imperfect,  he  was  fortunate  in  the  branches  that 
more  immediately  touched  on  his  career.  The 
physical  laboratory  was  the  best  mounted  in 
Italy.  Bancalari,  the  professor  of  natural  phi- 
losophy, was  famous  in  his  day ;  by  what  seems 
even  an  odd  coincidence,  he  went  deeply  into 
electro-magnetism ;  and  it  was  principally  in 
that  subject  that  Signer  Flaminio,  questioned 
in  Latin  and  answering  in  Italian,  passed  his 
Master  of  Arts  degree  with  first-class  honours. 
That  he  had  secured  the  notice  of  his  teachers, 
one  circumstance  sufficiently  proves.  A  philo- 
sophical society  was  started  under  the  presidency 
of  Mamiani,  '  one  of  the  examiners  and  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Moderate  party ';  and  out  of 
five  promising  students  brought  forward  by  the 
professors  to  attend  the  sittings  and  present  es- 
says, Signer  Flaminio  was  one.  I  cannot  find 
that  he  ever  read  an  essay ;  and  indeed  I  think 
his  hands  were  otherwise  too  full.  He  found 
his  fellow-students  'not  such  a  bad  set  of 


Studying  Music.  67 

chaps,'  and  preferred  the  Piedmontese  before 
the  Genoese  ;  but  I  suspect  he  mixed  not  very 
freely  with  either.  Not  only  were  his  days  filled 
with  university  work,  but  his  spare  hours  were 
fully  dedicated  to  the  arts  under  the  eye  of  a 
beloved  task-mistress.  He  worked  hard  and 
well  in  the  art  school,  where  he  obtained  a  sil- 
ver medal  '  for  a  couple  of  legs  the  size  of  life 
drawn  from  one  of  Raphael's  cartoons.'  His 
holidays  were  spent  in  sketching ;  his  evenings, 
when  they  were  free,  at  the  theatre.  Here  at  the 
opera  he  discovered  besides  a  taste  for  a  new 
art,  the  art  of  music  ;  and  it  was,  he  wrote,  '  as 
if  he  had  found  out  a  heaven  on  earth.'  '  I  am 
so  anxious  that  whatever  he  professes  to  know, 
he  should  really  perfectly  possess,'  his  mother 
wrote,  '  that  I  spare  no  pains ';  neither  to  him 
nor  to  myself,  she  might  have  added.  And  so 
when  he  begged  to  be  allowed  to  learn  the 
piano,  she  started  him  with  characteristic  bar- 
barity on  the  scales  ;  and  heard  in  consequence 
'  heart-rending  groans '  and  saw  '  anguished 
claspings  of  hands '  as  he  lost  his  way  among 
their  arid  intricacies. 

In  this  picture  of  the  lad  at  the  piano,  there 


68      Memoir  of  F teeming   Jenkin. 

is  something,  for  the  period,  girlish.  He  was 
indeed  his  mother's  boy ;  and  it  was  fortunate 
his  mother  was  not  altogether  feminine.  She 
gave  her  son  a  womanly  delicacy  in  morals,  to 
a  man's  taste— to  his  own  taste  in  later  life — 
too  finely  spun,  and  perhaps  more  elegant  than 
healthful.  She  encouraged  him  besides  in 
drawing-room  interests.  But  in  other  points 
her  influence  was  manlike.  Filled  with  the 
spirit  of  thoroughness,  she  taught  him  to  make 
of  the  least  of  these  accomplishments  a  virile 
task ;  and  the  teaching  lasted  him  through  life. 
Immersed  as  she  was  in  the  day's  movements 
and  buzzed  about  by  leading  Liberals,  she 
handed  on  to  him  her  creed  in  politics :  an  en- 
during kindness  for  Italy,  and  a  loyalty,  like 
that  of  many  clever  women,  to  the  Liberal  party 
with  but  small  regard  to  men  or  measures.  This 
attitude  of  mind  used  often  to  disappoint  me  in 
a  man  so  fond  of  logic ;  but  I  see  now  how  it 
was  learned  from  the  bright  eyes  of  his  mother 
and  to  the  sound  of  the  cannonades  of  1848. 
To  some  of  her  defects,  besides,  she  made  him 
heir.  Kind  as  was  the  bond  that  united  her  to 
her  son,  kind  and  even  pretty,  she  was  scarce  a 


His  Home  and  School  Training.    69 

woman  to  adorn  a  home  ;  loving  as  she  did  to 
shine ;  careless  as  she  was  of  domestic,  studious 
of  public  graces.  She  probably  rejoiced  to  see 
the  boy  grow  up  in  somewhat  of  the  image 
of  herself,  generous,  excessive,  enthusiastic, 
external ;  catching  at  ideas,  brandishing  them 
when  caught ;  fiery  for  the  right,  but  always 
fiery;  ready  at  fifteen  to  correct  a  consul, 
ready  at  fifty  to  explain  to  any  artist  his  own 
art. 

The  defects  and  advantages  of  such  a  training 
were  obvious  in  Fleeming  throughout  life.  His 
thoroughness  was  not  that  of  the  patient  scholar, 
but  of  an  untrained  woman  with  fits  of  passion- 
ate study ;  he  had  learned  too  much  from  dog- 
ma, given  indeed  by  cherished  lips ;  and  preco- 
cious as  he  was  in  the  use  of  the  tools  of  the 
mind,  he  was  truly  backward  in  knowledge  of 
life  and  of  himself.  Such  as  it  was  at  least, 
his  home  and  school  training  was  now  com- 
plete ;  and  you  are  to  conceive  the  lad  as  being 
formed  in  a  household  of  meagre  revenue, 
among  foreign  surroundings,  and  under  the 
influence  of  an  imperious  drawing-room  queen ; 
from  whom  he  learned  a  great  refinement  of 


70       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

morals,  a  strong  sense  of  duty,  much  forward- 
ness of  bearing,  all  manner  of  studious  and 
artistic  interests,  and  many  ready-made  opinions 
which  he  embraced  with  a  son's  and  a  disciple's 
loyalty. 


CHAPTER   III. 

1851—1858. 

Return  to  England — Fleeming  at  Fairbairn's— Experience  in  • 
Strike— Dr.  Bell  and  Greek  Architecture— The  Gaskells— Fleem- 
ing at  Greenwich — The  Austins— Fleeming  and  the  Austins — 
His  Engagement — Fleeming  and  Sir  W.  Thomson, 

TN  1851,  the  year  of  Aunt  Anna's  death,  the 
•*•  family  left  Genoa  and  came  to  Manchester, 
where  Fleeming  was  entered  in  Fairbairn's  works 
as  an  apprentice.  From  the  palaces  and  Alps, 
the  Mole,  the  blue  Mediterranean,  the  humming 
lanes  and  the  bright  theatres  of  Genoa,  he  fell — 
and  he  was  sharply  conscious  of  the  fall — to  the 
dim  skies  and  the  foul  ways  of  Manchester. 
England  he  found  on  his  return  '  a  horrid  place,' 
and  there  is  no  doubt  the  family  found  it  a  dear 
one.  The  story  of  the  Jenkin  finances  is  not 
easy  to  follow.  The  family,  I  am  told,  did  not 
practice  frugality,  only  lamented  that  it  should 
be  needful ;  and  Mrs.  Jenkin,  who  was  always 
complaining  of  'those  dreadful  bills,'  was  'al- 
ways a  good  deal  dressed.'  But  at  this  time  of 


'72       Memoir  of  Fleeming  fenkin. 

the  return  to  England,  things  must  have  gone 
further.  A  holiday  tour  of  a  fortnight,  Fleem- 
ing feared  would  be  beyond  what  he  could  af- 
ford, and  he  only  projected  it  '  to  have  a  castle 
in  the  air.'  And  there  were  actual  pinches. 
Fresh  from  a  warmer  sun,  he  was  obliged  to  go 
without  a  greatcoat,  and  learned  on  railway 
journeys  to  supply  the  place  of  one  with  wrap- 
pings of  old  newspaper. 

From  half-past  eight  till  six,  he  must  *  file  and 
chip  vigorously  in  a  moleskin  suit  and  infernally 
dirty.'  The  work  was  not  new  to  him,  for  he 
had  already  passed  some  time  in  a  Genoese 
shop ;  and  to  Fleeming  no  work  was  without 
interest.  Whatever  a  man  can  do  or  know,  he 
longed  to  know  and  do  also.  '  I  never  learned 
anything,'  he  wrote,  'not  even  standing  on  my 
head,  but  I  found  a  use  for  it.'  In  the  spare 
hours  of  his  first  telegraph  voyage,  to  give  an 
instance  of  his  greed  of  knowledge,  he  meant 
'  to  learn  the  whole  art  of  navigation,  every  rope 
in  the  ship  and  how  to  handle  her  on  any  occa- 
sion ';  and  once  when  he  was  shown  a  young 
lady's  holiday  collection  of  seaweeds,  he  must 
cry  out,  '  It  showed  me  my  eyes  had  been  idle.' 


His  Love  of  Handicraft.  73 

Nor  was  his  the  case  of  the  mere  literary  smat- 
terer,  content  if  he  but  learn  the  names  of  things. 
In  him,  to  do  and  to  do  well,  was  even  a  dearer 
ambition  than  to  know.  Anything  done  well, 
any  craft,  despatch,  or  finish,  delighted  and  in- 
spired him.  I  remember  him  with  a  twopenny 
Japanese  box  of  three  drawers,  so  exactly 
fitted  that,  when  one  was  driven  home,  the  oth- 
ers started  from  their  places ;  the  whole  spirit 
of  Japan,  he  told  me,  was  pictured  in  that  box ; 
that  plain  piece  of  carpentry  was  as  much  in- 
spired by  the  spirit  of  perfection  as  the  happiest 
drawing  or  the  finest  bronze  ;  and  he  who  could 
not  enjoy  it  in  the  one  was  not  fully  able  to  en- 
joy it  in  the  others.  Thus,  too,  he  found  in 
Leonardo's  engineering  and  anatomical  drawings 
a  perpetual  feast ;  and  of  the  former  he  spoke 
even  with  emotion.  Nothing  indeed  annoyed 
Fleeming  more  than  the  attempt  to  separate  the 
fine  arts  from  the  arts  of  handicraft ;  any  defi- 
nition or  theory  that  failed  to  bring  these  two 
together,  according  to  him,  had  missed  the 
point-;  and  the  essence  of  the  pleasure  received 
lay  in  seeing  things  well  done.  Other  qualities 
must  be  added ;  he  was  the  last  to  deny  that ; 


74       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

but  this,  of  perfect  craft,  was  at  the  bottom  of 
all.  And  on  the  other  hand,  a  nail  ill-driven,  a 
joint  ill-fitted,  a  tracing  clumsily  done,  anything 
to  which  a  man  had  set  his  hand  and  not  set  it 
aptly,  moved  him  to  shame  and  anger.  With 
such  a  character,  he  would  feel  but  little  drudg- 
ery at  Fairbairn's.  There  would  be  something 
daily  to  be  done,  slovenliness  to  be  avoided,  and 
a  higher  mark  of  skill  to  be  attained  ;  he  would 
chip  and  file,  as  he  had  practiced  scales,  impa- 
tient of  his  own  imperfection,  but  resolute  to 
learn. 

And  there  was  another  spring  of  delight.  For 
he  was  now  moving  daily  among  those  strange 
creations  of  man's  brain,  to  some  so  abhorrent, 
to  him  of  an  interest  so  inexhaustible  :  in  which 
iron,  water,  and  fire  are  made  to  serve  as  slaves, 
now  with  a  tread  more  powerful  than  an  ele- 
phant's, and  now  with  a  touch  more  precise  and 
dainty  than  a  pianist's.  The  taste  for  machin- 
ery was  one  that  I  could  never  share  with  him, 
and  he  had  a  certain  bitter  pity  for  my  weak- 
ness. Once  when  I  had  proved,  for  the  hun- 
dredth time,  the  depth  of  this  defect,  he  looked 
at  me  askance  :  '  And  the  best  of  the  joke,'  said 


Fleeming  at  Fairbairris.  75 

he,  '  is  that  he  thinks  himself  quite  a  poet.'  For 
to  him  the  struggle  of  the  engineer  against  brute 
forces  and  with  inert  allies,  was  nobly  poetic. 
Habit  never  dulled  in  him  the  sense  of  the 
greatness  of  the  aims  and  obstacles  of  his  pro- 
fession. Habit  only  sharpened  his  inventor's 
gusto  in  contrivance,  in  triumphant  artifice,  in  the 
Odyssean  subtleties,  by  which  wires  are  taught 
to  speak,  and  iron  hands  to  weave,  and  the 
slender  ship  to  brave  and  to  outstrip  the  tem- 
pest. To  the  ignorant  the  great  results  alone 
are  admirable ;  to  the  knowing,  and  to  Fleem- 
ing in  particular,  rather  the  infinite  device  and 
sleight  of  hand  that  made  them  possible. 

A  notion  was  current  at  the  time  that,  in  such 
a  shop  as  Fairbairn's,  a  pupil  would  never  be 
popular  unless  he  drank  with  the  workmen  and 
imitated  them  in  speech  and  manner.  Fleem- 
ing, who  would  do  none  of  these  things,  they 
accepted  as  a  friend  and  companion ;  and  this 
was  the  subject  of  remark  in  Manchester,  where 
some  memory  of  it  lingers  till  to-day.  He 
thought  it  one  of  the  advantages  of  his  profes- 
sion to  be  brought  into  a  close  relation  with  the 
working  classes;  and  for  the  skilled  artisan  he 


76       Memoir  of  Flecming  Jenkin. 

had  a  great  esteem,  liking  his  company,  his  vir. 
tues,  and  his  taste  in  some  of  the  arts.  But  he 
knew  the  classes  too  well  to  regard  them,  like  a 
platform  speaker,  in  a  lump.  He  drew,  on  the 
other  hand,  broad  distinctions;  and  it  was  his 
profound  sense  of  the  difference  between  one 
working  man  and  another  that  led  him  to  de- 
vote so  much  time,  in  later  days,  to  the  further- 
ance of  technical  education.  In  1852  he  had 
occasion  to  see  both  men  and  masters  at  their 
worst,  in  the  excitement  of  a  strike  ;  and  very 
foolishly  (after  their  custom)  both  would  seem 
to  have  behaved.  Beginning  with  a  fair  show 
of  justice  on  either  side,  the  masters  stultified 
their  cause  by  obstinate  impolicy,  and  the  men 
disgraced  their  order  by  acts  of  outrage.  '  On 
Wednesday  last,'  writes  Fleeming,  '  about  three 
thousand  banded  round  Fairbairn's  door  at  6 
o'clock :  men,  women,  and  children,  factory  boys 
and  girls,  the  lowest  of  the  low  in  a  very  low 
place.  Orders  came  that  no  one  was  to  leave 
the  works ;  but  the  men  inside  (Knobsticks,  as 
they  are  called)  were  precious  hungry  and 
thought  they  would  venture.  Two  of  my  com- 
panions and  myself  went  out  with  the  very  first, 


Experience  of  a  Strike.  77 

and  had  the  full  benefit  of  every  possible  groan 
and  bad  language/  But  the  police  cleared  a 
lane  through  the  crowd,  the  pupils  were  suffered 
to  escape  unhurt,  and  only  the  Knobsticks  fol- 
lowed home  and  kicked  with  clogs ;  so  that 
Fleeming  enjoyed,  as  we  may  say,  for  nothing, 
that  fine  thrill  of  expectant  valour  with  which 
he  had  sallied  forth  into  the  mob.  '  I  never  be 
fore  felt  myself  so  decidedly  somebody,  instead 
of  nobody,'  he  wrote. 

Outside  as  inside  the  works,  he  was  '  pretty 
merry  and  well  to  do,'  zealous  in  study,  wel- 
come to  many  friends,  unwearied  in  loving-kind- 
ness to  his  mother.  For  some  time  he  spent 
three  nights  a  week  with  Dr.  Bell,  '  working 
away  at  certain  geometrical  methods  of  getting 
the  Greek  architectural  proportions ':  a  business 
after  Fleeming's  heart,  for  he  was  never  so 
pleased  as  when  he  could  marry  his  two  devo- 
tions, art  and  science.  This  was  besides,  in  all 
likelihood,  the  beginning  of  that  love  and  inti- 
mate appreciation  of  things  Greek,  from  the 
least  to  the  greatest,  from  the  Agamemnon  (per- 
haps his  favourite  tragedy)  down  to  the  details 
of  Grecian  tailoring,  which  he  used  to  express 


78       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

in  his  familiar  phrase :  '  The  Greeks  were  the 
boys.'  Dr.  Bell — the  son  of  George  Joseph,  the 
nephew  of  Sir  Charles,  and  though  he  made  less 
use  of  it  than  some,  a  sharer  in  the  distinguished 
talents  of  his  race — had  hit  upon  the  singular 
fact  that  certain  geometrical  intersections  gave 
the  proportions  of  the  Doric  order.  Fleeming, 
under  Dr.  Bell's  direction,  applied  the  same 
method  to  the  other  orders,  and  again  found  the 
proportions  accurately  given.  Numbers  of  dia- 
grams were  prepared ;  but  the  discovery  was 
never  given  to  the  world,  perhaps  because  of  the 
dissensions  that  arose  between  the  authors.  For 
Dr.  Bell  believed  that  '  these  intersections  were 
in  some  way  connected  with,  or  symbolical  of, 
the  antagonistic  forces  at  work ';  but  his  pupil 
and  helper,  with  characteristic  trenchancy, 
brushed  aside  this  mysticism,  and  interpreted 
the  discovery  as  '  a  geometrical  method  of  divid- 
ing the  spaces  or  (as  might  be  said)  of  setting 
out  the  work,  purely  empirical  and  in  no  way 
connected  with  any  laws  of  either  force  or 
beauty.'  '  Many  a  hard  and  pleasant  fight  we 
had  over  it,'  wrote  Jenkin,  in  later  years;  'and 
impertinent  as  it  may  seem,  the  pupil  is  still 


The  Gaskells.  79 

unconvinced  by  the  arguments  of  the  master.' 
I  do  not  know  about  the  antagonistic  forces  in 
the  Doric  order ;  in  Fleeming  they  were  plain 
enough ;  and  the  Bobadil  of  these  affairs  with 
Dr.  Bell  was  still,  like  the  corrector  of  Italian 
consuls,  '  a  great  child  in  everything  but  infor- 
mation.' At  the  house  of  Colonel  Cleather,  he 
might  be  seen  with  a  family  of  children  ;  and 
with  these,  there  was  no  word  of  the  Greek  or- 
ders ;  with  these  Fleeming  was  only  an  uproar- 
ious boy  and  an  entertaining  draughtsman  ;  so 
that  his  coming  was  the  signal  for  the  young 
people  to  troop  into  the  playroom,  where  some- 
times the  roof  rang  with  romping,  and  some- 
times they  gathered  quietly  about  him  as  he 
amused  them  with  his  pencil. 

In  another  Manchester  family,  whose  name 
will  be  familiar  to  my  readers — that  of  the  Gas- 
kells, Fleeming  was  a  frequent  visitor.  To  Mrs. 
Gaskell,  he  would  often  bring  his  new  ideas,  a 
process  that  many  of  his  later  friends  will  under- 
stand and,  in  their  own  cases,  remember.  With 
the  girls,  he  had  '  constant  fierce  wrangles,'  forc- 
ing them  to  reason  out  their  thoughts  and  to 
explain  their  prepossessions;  and  I  hear  from 


8o       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

Miss  Gaskell  that  they  used  to  wonder  how  he 
could  throw  all  the  ardour  of  his  character  into 
the  smallest  matters,  and  to  admire  his  unself- 
ish devotion  to  his  parents.  Of  one  of  these 
wrangles,  I  have  found  a  record  most  character- 
istic of  the  man.  Fleeming  had  been  laying 
down  his  doctrine  that  the  end  justifies  the 
means,  and  that  it  is  quite  right  '  to  boast  of 
your  six  men-servants  to  a  burglar  or  to  steal  a 
knife  to  prevent  a  murder';  and  the  Miss  Gas- 
kells,  with  girlish  loyalty  to  what  is  current,  had 
rejected  the  heresy  with  indignation.  From 
such  passages-at-arms,  many  retire  mortified  and 
ruffled  ;  but  Fleeming  had  no  sooner  left  the 
house  than  he  fell  into  delighted  admiration  of 
the  spirit  of  his  adversaries.  From  that  it  was 
but  a  step  to  ask  himself  '  what  truth  was  stick- 
ing in  their  heads';  for  even  the  falsest  form  of 
words  (in  Fleeming's  life-long  opinion)  reposed 
upon  some  truth,  just  as  he  could  '  not  even  al- 
low that  people  admire  ugly  things,  they  admire 
what  is  pretty  in  the  ugly  thing.'  And  before 
he  sat  down  to  write  his  letter,  he  thought  Ire 
had  hit  upon  the  explanation.  '  I  fancy  the  true 
idea,'  he  wrote,  '  is  that  you  must  never  do  your- 


Fleeming  at  Greenwich.  81 

self  or  anyone  else  a  moral  injury — make  any 
man  a  thief  or  a  liar — for  any  end ';  quite  a 
different  thing,  as  he  would  have  loved  to  point 
out,  from  never  stealing  or  lying.  But  this  per- 
fervid  disputant  was  not  always  out  of  key  with 
his  audience.  One  whom  he  met  in  the  same 
house  announced  that  she  would  never  again  be 
happy.  '  What  does  that  signify  ? '  cried  Fleem- 
ing. *  We  are  not  here  to  be  happy,  but  to  be 
good.'  And  the  words  (as  his  hearer  writes  to 
me)  became  to  her  a  sort  of  motto  during  life. 

From  Fairbairn's  and  Manchester,  Fleeming 
passed  to  a  railway  survey  in  Switzerland,  and 
*hence  again  to  Mr.  Penn's  at  Greenwich,  where 
he  was  engaged  as  draughtsman.  There  in  1856, 
we  find  him  in  *  a  terribly  busy  state,  finishing 
up  engines  for  innumerable  gun-boats  and  steam 
frigates  for  the  ensuing  campaign.'  From  half- 
past  eight  in  the  morning  till  nine  or  ten  at 
night,  he  worked  in  a  crowded  office  among  un- 
congenial comrades,  '  saluted  by  chaff,  generally 
low  personal  and  not  witty/  pelted  with  oranges 
and  apples,  regaled  with  dirty  stories,  and  seek- 
ing to  suit  himself  with  his  surroundings  or  (as 
he  writes  it)  trying  to  be  as  little  like  himself  as 


82       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

possible.  His  lodgings  were  hard  by,  '  across  a 
dirty  green  and  through  some  half-built  streets 
of  two-storied  houses ';  he  had  Carlyle  and  the 
poets,  engineering  and  mathematics,  to  study 
by  himself  in  such  spare  time  as  remained  to 
him  ;  and  there  were  several  ladies,  young  and 
not  so  young,  with  whom  he  liked  to  cor- 
respond. But  not  all  of  these  could  compen- 
sate for  the  absence  of  that  mother,  who  had 
made  herself  so  large  a  figure  in  his  life,  for 
sorry  surroundings,  unsuitable  society,  and  work 
that  leaned  to  the  mechanical.  '  Sunday,'  says 
he,  '  I  generally  visit  some  friends  in  town  and 
seem  to  swim  in  clearer  water,  but  the  dirty 
green  seems  all  the  dirtier  when  I  get  back. 
Luckily  I  am  fond  of  my  profession,  or  I  could 
not  stand  this  life.'  It  is  a  question  in  my  mind, 
if  he  could  have  long  continued  to  stand  it  with- 
out loss.  '  We  are  not  here  to  be  happy,  but  to 
be  good,'  quoth  the  young  philosopher  ;  but  no 
man  had  a  keener  appetite  for  happiness  than 
Fleeming  Jenkin.  There  is  a  time  of  life  be- 
sides when,  apart  from  circumstances,  few  men 
are  agreeable  to  their  neighbours  and  still  fewer 
to  themselves ;  and  it  was  at  this  stage  that 


Fleeming  s  Correspondence.         83 

Fleeming  had  arrived,  later  than  common  and 
even  worse  provided.  The  letter  from  which  I 
have  quoted  is  the  last  of  his  correspondence 
with  Frank  Scott,  and  his  last  confidential  let 
ter  to  one  of  his  own  sex.  '  If  you  consider  k 
rightly,'  he  wrote  long  after,  '  you  will  find  the 
want  of  correspondence  no  such  strange  want 
in  men's  friendships.  There  is,  believe  me, 
something  noble  in  the  metal  which  does  not 
rust  though  not  burnished  by  daily  use.'  It  is 
well  said ;  but  the  last  letter  to  Frank  Scott  is 
scarcely  of  a  noble  metal.  It  is  plain  the  writer 
has  outgrown  his  old  self,  yet  not  made  ac- 
quaintance with  the  new.  This  letter  from  a 
busy  youth  of  three  and  twenty,  breathes  of 
seventeen :  the  sickening  alternations  of  con- 
ceit and  shame,  the  expense  of  hope  in  vacuo, 
the  lack  of  friends,  the  longing  after  love ;  the 
whole  world  of  egoism  under  which  youth  stands 
groaning,  a  voluntary  Atlas. 

With  Fleeming  this  disease  was  never  seem- 
ingly severe.  The  very  day  before  this  (to  me) 
distasteful  letter,  he  had  written  to  Miss  Bell  of 
Manchester  in  a  sweeter  strain ;  I  do  not  quote 
the  one,  I  quote  the  other ;  fair  things  are  the 


84       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

best.  '  I  keep  my  own  little  lodgings/  he  writes, 
'  but  come  up  every  night  to  see  mamma '  (who 
was  then  on  a  visit  to  London)  '  if  not  kept  too 
late  at  the  works  ;  and  have  singing  lessons  once 
more,  and  sing  "Donne  1'amore  t  scaltro  pargo- 
letto" ;  and  think  and  talk  about  you  ;  and  listen 
to  mamma's  projects  de  Stowting.  Everything 
turns  to  gold  at  her  touch,  she's  a  fairy  and  no 
mistake.  We  go  on  talking  till  I  have  a  picture 
in  my  head,  and  can  hardly  believe  at  the  end 
that  the  original  is  Stowting.  Even  you  don't 
know  half  how  good  mamma  is ;  in  other  things 
too,  which  I  must  not  mention.  She  teaches 
me  how  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  very  rich  to  do 
much  good.  I  begin  to  understand  that  mam- 
ma would  find  useful  occupation  and  create 
beauty  at  the  bottom  of  a  volcano.  She  has 
little  weaknesses,  but  is  a  real  generous-hearted 
woman,  which  I  suppose  is  the  finest  thing  in 
the  world.'  Though  neither  mother  nor  son 
could  be  called  beautiful,  they  make  a  pretty 
picture ;  the  ugly,  generous,  ardent  woman 
weaving  rainbow  illusions ;  the  ugly,  clear- 
sighted, loving  son  sitting  at  her  side  in  one  of 
his  rare  hours  of  pleasure,  half-beguiled,  half- 


Two   Words  of  Hope.  85 

amused,  wholly  admiring,  as  he  listens.  But  as 
he  goes  home,  and  the  fancy  pictures  fade,  and 
Stowting  is  once  more  burthened  with  debt,  and 
the  noisy  companions  and  the  long  hours  of 
drudgery  once  more  approach,  no  wonder  if  the 
dirty  green  seems  all  the  dirtier  or  if  Atlas  must 
resume  his  load. 

But  in  healthy  natures,  this  time  of  moral 
teething  passes  quickly  of  itself,  and  is  easily 
alleviated  by  fresh  interests ;  and  already,  in  the 
letter  to  Frank  Scott,  there  are  two  words  of 
hope :  his  friends  in  London,  his  love  for  his 
profession.  The  last  might  have  saved  him  ;  for 
he  was  ere  long  to  pass  into  a  new  sphere,  where 
all  his  faculties  were  to  be  tried  and  exercised, 
and  his  life  to  be  filled  with  interest  and  effort. 
But  it  was  not  left  to  engineering  :  another  and 
more  influential  aim  was  to  be  set  before  him. 
He  must,  in  any  case,  have  fallen  in  love;  in 
any  case,  his  love  would  have  ruled  his  life ;  and 
the  question  of  choice  was,  for  the  descendant 
of  two  such  families,  a  thing  of  paramount  im- 
portance. Innocent  of  the  world,  fiery,  gener. 
ous,  devoted  as  he  was,  the  son  of  the  wild 
Jacksons  and  the  facile  Jenkins  might  have  been 


86       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

led  far  astray.  By  one  of  those  partialities  that 
fill  men  at  once  with  gratitude  and  wonder,  his 
choosing  was  directed  well.  Or  are  we  to  say 
that  by  a  man's  choice  in  marriage,  as  by  a  cru- 
cial merit,  he  deserves  his  fortune  ?  One  thing 
at  least  reason  may  discern  :  that  a  man  but 
partly  chooses,  he  also  partly  forms,  his  help- 
mate ;  and  he  must  in  part  deserve  her,  or  the 
treasure  is  but  won  for  a  moment  to  be  lost. 
Fleeming  chanced  if  you  will  (and  indeed  all 
these  opportunities  are  as  '  random  as  blind 
man's  buff ')  upon  a  wife  who  was  worthy  of 
him  ;  but  he  had  the  wit  to  know  it,  the  courage 
to  wait  and  labour  for  his  prize,  and  the  tender- 
ness and  chivalry  that  are  required  to  keep  such 
prizes  precious.  Upon  this  point  he  has  himself 
written  well,  as  usual  with  fervent  optimism, 
but  as  usual  (in  his  own  phrase)  with  a  truth 
sticking  in  his  head. 

'  Love,'  he  wrote,  '  is  not  an  intuition  of  the 
person  most  suitable  to  us,  most  required  by 
us ;  of  the  person  with  whom  life  flowers  and 
bears  fruit.  If  this  were  so,  the  chances  of  our 
meeting  that  person  would  be  small  indeed  ;  our 
intuition  would  often  fail ;  the  blindness  of  love 


Fleemings  idea  of  Love.  87 

would  then  be  fatal  as  it  is  proverbial.  No,  love 
works  differently,  and  in  its  blindness  lies  its 
strength.  Man  and  woman,  each  strongly  de- 
sires to  be  loved,  each  opens  to  the  other  that 
heart  of  ideal  aspirations  which  they  have  often 
hid  till  then ;  each,  thus  knowing  the  ideal  of 
the  other,  tries  to  fulfil  that  ideal,  each  partially 
succeeds.  The  greater  the  love,  the  greater  the 
success ;  the  nobler  the  idea  of  each,  the  more 
durable,  the  more  beautiful  the  effect.  Mean- 
while the  blindness  of  each  to  the  other's  de- 
fects enables  the  transformation  to  proceed 
[unobserved,]  so  that  when  the  veil  is  withdrawn 
(if  it  ever  is,  and  this  I  do  not  know)  neither 
knows  that  any  change  has  occurred  in  the  per- 
son whom  they  loved.  Do  not  fear,  therefore. 
I  do  not  tell  you  that  your  friend  will  not 
change,  but  as  I  am  sure  that  her  choice  cannot 
be  that  of  a  man  with  a  base  ideal,  so  I  am  sure 
the  change  will  be  a  safe  and  a  good  one.  Do 
not  fear  that  anything  you  love  will  vanish,  he 
must  love  it  too.' 

Among  other  introductions  in  London,  Fleem- 
ing  had  presented  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Gaskell  to 
the  Alfred  Austins.  This  was  a  family  certain 


88       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

to  interest  a  thoughtful  young  man.  Alfred, 
the  youngest  and  least  known  of  the  Austins, 
had  been  a  beautiful  golden-haired  child,  petted 
and  kept  out  of  the  way  of  both  sport  and  study 
by  a  partial  mother.  Bred  an  attorney,  he  had 
(like  both  his  brothers)  changed  his  way  of  life, 
and  was  called  to  the  bar  when  past  thirty.  A 
Commission  of  Enquiry  into  the  state  of  the 
poor  in  Dorsetshire  gave  him  an  opportunity  of 
proving  his  true  talents ;  and  he  was  appointed 
a  Poor  Law  Inspector,  first  at  Worcester,  next 
at  Manchester,  where  he  had  to  deal  with  the 
potato  famine  and  the  Irish  immigration  of  the 
'forties,  and  finally  in  London,  where  he  again 
distinguished  himself  during  an  epidemic  of 
cholera.  He  was  then  advanced  to  the  Perma- 
nent Secretaryship  of  Her  Majesty's  Office  of 
Works  and  Public  Buildings  ;  a  position  which 
he  filled  with  perfect  competence,  but  with  an 
extreme  of  modesty ;  and  on  his  retirement,  in 
1868,  he  was  made  a  Companion  of  the  Bath. 
While  apprentice  to  a  Norwich  attorney,  Alfred 
Austin  was  a  frequent  visitor  in  the  house  of 
Mr.  Barren,  a  rallying  place  in  those  days  of  in- 
tellectual society.  Edward  Barren,  the  son  of  a 


Taylor  and  Barron.  89 

rich  saddler  or  leather  merchant  in  the  Borough, 
was  a  man  typical  of  the  time.  When  he  was 
a  child,  he  had  once  been  patted  on  the  head  in 
his  father's  shop  by  no  less  a  man  than  Samuel 
Johnson,  as  the  Doctor  went  round  the  Borough 
canvassing  for  Mr.  Thrale  ;  and  the  child  was 
true  to  this  early  consecration.  *  A  life  of  let- 
tered ease  spent  in  provincial  retirement,'  it  is 
thus  that  the  biographer  of  that  remarkable 
man,  William  Taylor,  announces  his  subject ; 
and  the  phrase  is  equally  descriptive  of  the  life 
of  Edward  Barron.  The  pair  were  close  friends : 
'  W.  T.  and  a  pipe  render  everything  agreeable,' 
writes  Barron  in  his  diary  in  1828 ;  and  in  1833, 
after  Barron  had  moved  to  London  and  Taylor 
had  tasted  the  first  public  failure  of  his  powers, 
the  latter  wrote  :  '  To  my  ever  dearest  Mr.  Bar- 
ron say,  if  you  please,  that  I  miss  him  more  than 
I  regret  him — that  I  acquiesce  in  his  retirement 
from  Norwich,  because  I  could  ill  brook  his  ob- 
serv£tion  of  my  increasing  debility  of  mind.' 
This  chosen  companion  of  William  Taylor  must 
himself  have  been  no  ordinary  man  ;  and  he  was 
the  friend  besides  of  Borrow,  whom  I  find  him 
helping  in  his  Latin.  But  he  had  no  desire  for 


90       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

popular  distinction,  lived  privately,  married  a 
daughter  of  Dr.  Enfield  of  Enfield's  Speaker, 
and  devoted  his  time  to  the  education  of  his 
family,  in  a  deliberate  and  scholarly  fashion,  and 
with  certain  traits  of  stoicism,  that  would  sur- 
prise a  modern.  From  these  children  we  must 
single  out  his  youngest  daughter,  Eliza,  who 
learned  under  his  care  to  be  a  sound  Latin,  an 
elegant  Grecian,  and  to  suppress  emotion  with- 
out outward  sign  after  the  manner  of  the  Godwin 
school.  This  was  the  more  notable,  as  the  girl 
really  derived  from  the  Enfields;  whose  high- 
flown  romantic  temper,  I  wish  I  could  find  space 
to  illustrate.  She  was  but  seven  years  old,  when 
Alfred  Austin  remarked  and  fell  in  love  with 
her ;  and  the  union  thus  early  prepared  was  sin- 
gularly full.  Where  the  husband  and  wife  dif- 
fered, and  they  did  so  on  momentous  subjects, 
they  differed  with  perfect  temper  and  content ; 
and  in  the  conduct  of  life,  and  in  depth  and  dura- 
bility of  love,  they  were  at  one.  Each  full  of  high 
spirits,  each  practised  something  of  the  same 
repression  :  no  sharp  word  was  uttered  in  their 
house.  The  same  point  of  honour  ruled  them'. 
a  guest  was  sacred  and  stood  within  the  pale 


The  Austins.  gi 

from  criticism.  It  was  a  house,  besides,  of  un- 
usual intellectual  tension.  Mrs.  Austin  remem- 
bered, in  the  early  days  of  the  marriage,  the 
three  brothers,  John,  Charles,  and  Alfred,  march- 
ing to  and  fro,  each  with  his  hands  behind  his 
back,  and  '  reasoning  high '  till  morning ;  and 
how,  like  Dr.  Johnson,  they  would  cheer  their 
speculations  with  as  many  as  fifteen  cups  of  tea. 
And  though,  before  the  date  of  Fleeming's  visit, 
the  brothers  were  separated,  Charles  long  ago 
retired  from  the  world  at  Brandeston,  and  John 
already  near  his  end  in  the  '  rambling  old  house  * 
at  Weybridge,  Alfred  Austin  and.  his  wife  were 
still  a  centre  of  much  intellectual  society,  and 
still,  as  indeed  they  remained  until  the  last, 
youthfully  alert  in  mind.  There  was  but  one 
child  of  the  marriage,  Anne,  and  she  was  herself 
something  new  for  the  eyes  of  the  young  vis- 
itor ;  brought  up,  as  she  had  been,  like  her 
mother  before  her,  to  the  standard  of  a  man's 
acquirements.  Only  one  art  had  she  been  de- 
nied, she  must  not  learn  the  violin — the  thought 
was  too  monstrous  even  for  the  Austins ;  and 
indeed  it  would  seem  as  if  that  tide  of  reform 
which  we  may  date  from  the  days  of  Mary  Woll- 


92       Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

stonecraft  had  in  some  degree  even  receded ; 
for  though  Miss  Austin  was  suffered  to  learn 
Greek,  the  accomplishment  was  keot  secret  like 
a  piece  of  guilt.  But  whether  this  stealth  was 
caused  by  a  backward  movement  in  public 
thought  since  the  time  of  Edward  Barren,  or  by 
the  change  from  enlightened  Norwich  to  barba- 
rian London,  I  have  no  means  of  judging. 

When  Fleeming  presented  his  letter,  he  fell 
in  love  at  first  sight  with  Mrs.  Austin  and  the 
life  and  atmosphere  of  the  house.  There  was 
in  the  society  of  the  Austins,  outward,  stoical 
conformers  to  the  world,  something  gravely 
suggestive  of  essential  eccentricity,  something 
unpretentiously  breathing  of  intellectual  effort, 
that  could  not  fail  to  hit  the  fancy  of  this  hot- 
brained  boy.  The  unbroken  enamel  of  courtesy, 
the  self-restraint,  the  dignified  kindness  of  these 
married  folk,  had  besides  a  particular  attraction 
for  their  visitor.  He  could  not  but  compare 
what  he  saw,  with  what  he  knew  of  his  mother 
and  himself.  Whatever  virtues  Fleeming  pos- 
sessed, he  could  never  count  on  being  civil; 
whatever  brave,  true-hearted  qualities  he  was  able 
to  admire  in  Mrs.  Jenkin,  mildness  of  demeanour 


Fleeming  and  the  Austins.         93 

was  not  one  of  them.  And  here  he  found  per 
sons  who  were  the  equals  of  his  mother  and 
himself  in  intellect  and  width  of  interest,  and 
the  equals  of  his  father  in  mild  urbanity  of  dis- 
position. Show  Fleeming  an  active  virtue,  and 
lie  always  loved  it.  He  went  away  from  that 
house  struck  through  with  admiration,  and  vow- 
ing to  himself  that  his  -own  married  life  should 
be  upon  that  pattern,  his  wife  (whoever  she 
might  be)  like  Eliza  Barren,  himself  such  an- 
other husband  as  Alfred  Austin.  What  is  more 
strange,  he  not  only  brought  away,  but  left  be- 
hind him,  golden  opinions.  He  must  have  been 
— he  was,  I  am  told — a  trying  lad ;  but  there 
shone  out  of  him  such  a  light  of  innocent  can- 
dour, enthusiasm,  intelligence,  and  appreciation, 
that  to  persons  already  some  way  forward  in 
years,  and  thus  able  to  enjoy  indulgently  the 
perennial  comedy  of  youth,  the  sight  of  him  was 
delightful.  By  a  pleasant  coincidence,  there 
was  one  person  in  the  house  whom  he  did  not 
appreciate  and  who  did  not  appreciate  him  : 
Anne  Austin,  his  future  wife.  His  boyish  van- 
ity ruffled  her;  his  appearance,  never  impress- 
ive, was  then,  by  reason  of  obtrusive  boyishness, 


94       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

still  less  so ;  she  found  occasion  to  put  him  in 
the  wrong  by  correcting  a  false  quantity ;  and 
when  Mr.  Austin,  after  doing  his  visitor  the  al- 
most unheard-of  honour  of  accompanying  him 
to  the  door,  announced  'That  was  what  young 
men  were  like  in  my  time  ' — she  could  only  re- 
ply, looking  on  her  handsome  father,  '  I  thought 
they  had  been  better  looking.' 

This  first  visit  to  the  Austins  took  place  in 
1855  ;  and  it  seems  it  was  some  time  before 
Fleeming  began  to  know  his  mind;  and  yet 
longer  ere  he  ventured  to  show  it.  The  cor- 
rected quantity,  to  those  who  knew  him  well, 
will  seem  to  have  played  its  part ;  he  was  the 
man  always  to  reflect  over  a  correction  and  to 
admire  the  castigator.  And  fall  in  love  he  did ; 
not  hurriedly  but  step  by  step,  not  blindly  but 
with  critical  discrimination ;  not  in  the  fashion 
of  Romeo,  but  before  he  was  done,  with  all 
Romeo's  ardour  and  more  than  Romeo's 
faith.  The  high  favour  to  which  he  presently 
rose  in  the  esteem  of  Alfred  Austin  and  his  wife, 
might  well  give  him  ambitious  notions  ;  but  the 
poverty  of  the  present  and  the  obscurity  of  the 
future  were  there  to  give  him  pause ;  and  when 


F teeming  s  Engagement.  95 

his  aspirations  began  to  settle  round  Miss 
Austin,  he  tasted,  perhaps  for  the  only  time  in 
his  life,  the  pangs  of  diffidence.  There  was  in- 
deed opening  before  him  a  wide  door  of  hope. 
He  had  changed  into  the  service  of  Messrs. 
Liddell  &  Gordon  ;  these  gentlemen  had  begun 
to  dabble  in  the  new  field  of  marine  telegraphy ; 
and  Fleeming  was  already  face  to  face  with  his 
life's  work.  That  impotent  sense  of  his  own 
value,  as  of  a  ship  aground,  which  makes  one  of 
the  agonies  of  youth,  began  to  fall  from  him. 
New  problems  which  he  was  endowed  to  solve, 
vistas  of  new  enquiry  which  he  was  fitted  to  ex- 
plore, opened  before  him  continually.  His  gifts 
had  found  their  avenue  and  goal.  And  with 
this  pleasure  of  effective  exercise,  there  must 
have  sprung  up  at  once  the  hope  of  what  is 
called  by  the  world  success.  But  from  these 
low  beginnings,  it  was  a  far  look  upward  to  Miss 
Austin :  the  favour  of  the  loved  one  seems 
always  more  than  problematical  to  any  lover; 
the  consent  of  parents  must  be  always  more  than 
doubtful  to  a  young  man  with  a  smalt  salary 
and  no  capital  except  capacity  and  hope.  But 
Fleeming  was  not  the  lad  to  lose  any  good  thing 


96       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

for  the  lack  of  trial ;  and  at  length,  in  the  autumn 
of  1857,  this  boyish-sized,  boyish-mannered,  and 
superlatively  ill-dressed  young  engineer,  en- 
tered  the  house  of  the  Austins,  with  such  sink- 
ings as  we  may  fancy,  and  asked  leave  to  pay 
his  addresses  to  the  daughter.  Mrs.  Austin 
already  loved  him  like  a  son,  she  was  but  too 
glad  to  give  him  her  consent ;  Mr.  Austin  re- 
served the  right  to  inquire  into  his  character; 
from  neither  was  there  a  word  about  his  pros- 
pects, by  neither  was  his  income  mentioned. 
'  Are  these  people,'  he  wrote,  struck  with  won- 
der at  this  dignified  disinterestedness, '  are  these 
people  the  same  as  other  people?'  It  was  not 
till  he  was  armed  with  this  permission,  that  Miss 
Austin  even  suspected  the  nature  of  his  hopes: 
so  strong,  in  this  unmannerly  boy,  was  the  prin- 
ciple of  true  courtesy ;  so  powerful,  in  this  im- 
petuous nature,  the  springs  of  self-repression. 
And  yet  a  boy  he  was ;  a  boy  in  heart  and  mind  ; 
and  it  was  with  a  boy's  chivalry  and  frankness 
that  he  won  his  wife.  His  conduct  was  a  model 
of  honour,  hardly  of  tact ;  to  conceal  love  from 
the  loved  one,  to  court  her  parents,  to  be  silent 
and  discreet  till  these  are  won,  and  then  with- 


Correspondence  with  his  Betrothed.  97 

out  preparation  to  approach  the  lady — these  are 
not  arts  that  I  would  recommend  for  imitation. 
They  lead  to  final  refusal.  Nothing  saved 
Fleeming  from  that  fate,  but  one  circumstance 
that  cannot  be  counted  upon — the  hearty  favour 
of  the  mother,  and  one  gift  that  is  inimitable 
and  that  never  failed  him  throughout  life,  the 
gift  of  a  nature  essentially  noble  and  outspoken. 
A  happy  and  high-minded  anger  flashed  through 
his  despair :  it  won  for  him  his  wife. 

Nearly  two  years  passed  before  it  was  possible 
to  marry :  two  years  of  activity,  now  in  London  ; 
now  at  Birkenhead,  fitting  out  ships,  inventing 
new  machinery  for  new  purposes,  and  dipping 
into  electrical  experiment ;  now  in  the  Elba  on 
his  first  telegraph  cruise  between  Sardinia  and 
Algiers :  a  busy  and  delightful  period  of  bound- 
ing ardour,  incessant  toil,  growing  hope  and 
fresh  interests,  with  behind  and  through  all, 
the  image  of  his  beloved.  A  few  extracts 
from  his  correspondence  with  his  betrothed 
will  give  the  note  of  these  truly  joyous  years. 
'  My  profession  gives  me  all  the  excitement 
and  interest  I  ever  hope  for,  but  the  sorry 
jade  is  obviously  jealous  of  you.'  —  '"Poor 


98       Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

Fleeming,"  in  spite  of  wet,  cold  and  wind,  clam- 
bering over  moist,  tarry  slips,  wandering  among 
pools  of  slush  in  waste  places  inhabited  by 
wandering  locomotives,  grows  visibly  stronger, 
has  dismissed  his  office  cough  and  cured  his 
toothache.' — '  The  whole  of  the  paying  out  and 
lifting  machinery  must  be  designed  and  ordered 
in  two  or  three  days,  and  I  am  half  crazy  with 
work.  I  like  it  though:  it's  like  a  good  ball, 
the  excitement  carries  you  through.' — '  I  was 
running  to  and  from  the  ships  and  warehouse 
through  fierce  gusts  of  rain  and  wind  till  near 
eleven,  and  you  cannot  think  what  a  pleasure  it 
was  to  be  blown  about  and  think  of  you  in  your 
pretty  dress.' — '  I  am  at  the  works  till  ten  and 
sometimes  till  eleven.  But  I  have  a  nice  office 
to  sit  in,  with  a  fire  to  myself,  and  bright  brass 
scientific  instruments  all  round  me,  and  books 
to  read,  and  experiments  to  make,  and  enjoy 
myself  amazingly.  I  find  the  study  of  electricity 
so  entertaining  that  I  am  apt  to  neglect  my 
other  work.'  And  for  a  last  taste,  '  Yesterday 
I  had  some  charming  electrical  experiments. 
What  shall  I  compare  them  to — a  new  song  ?  a 
Greek  play  ? ' 


Sir   William   Thomson.  99 

It  was  at  this  time  besides  that  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Professor,  now  Sir  William, 
Thomson.  To  describe  the  part  played  by  these 
two  in  each  other's  lives  would  lie  out  of  my 
way.  They  worked  together  on  the  Committee 
on  Electrical  Standards ;  they  served  together 
at  the  laying  down  or  the  repair  of  many  deep- 
sea  cables ;  and  Sir  William  was  regarded  by 
Fleeming,  not  only  with  the  '  worship  '  (the  word 
is  his  own)  due  to  great  scientific  gifts,  but  with 
an  ardour  of  personal  friendship  not  frequently 
excelled.  To  their  association,  Fleeming  brought 
the  valuable  element  of  a  practical  understand- 
ing ;  but  he  never  thought  or  spoke  of  himself 
where  Sir  William  was  in  question  ;  and  I  recall 
quite  in  his  last  days,  a  singular  instance  of  this 
modest  loyalty  to  one  whom  he  admired  and 
loyed.  He  drew  up  a  paper,  in  a  quite  personal 
interest,  of  his  own  services ;  yet  even  here  he 
must  step  out  of  his  way,  he  must  add,  where 
it  had  no  claim  to  be  added,  his  opinion  that,  in 
their  joint  work,  the  contributions  of  Sir  Will- 
iam had  been  always  greatly  the  most  valuable. 
Again,  I  shall  not  readily  forget  with  what  emo- 
tion he  once  told  me  an  incident  of  their  associ- 


ioo     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

ated  travels.  On  one  of  the  mountain  ledges  of 
Madeira,  Fleeming's  pony  bolted  between  Sir 
William  and  the  precipice  above ;  by  strange 
good  fortune  and  thanks  to  the  steadiness  of 
Sir  William's  horse,  no  harm  was  done  ;  but  for 
the  moment,  Fleeming  saw  his  friend  hurled 
into  the  sea,  and  almost  by  his  own  act :  it  was 
a  memory  that  haunted  him. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

1859- -1868. 

Fleeming's  Marriage — His  Married  Life—  Professional  Difficultiel 
— Life  at  Claygate— -Illness  of  Mrs.  F.  Jenkin  ;  and  of  Fleem- 
ing — Appointment  to  the  Chair  at  Edinburgh. 

Saturday,  Feb.  26,  1859,  profiting  by  a 
holiday  of  four  days,  Fleeming  was  mar- 
ried to  Miss  Austin  at  Northiam :  a  place  con- 
nected not  only  with  his  own  family  but  with 
that  of  his  bride  as  well.  By  Tuesday  morning, 
he  was  at  work  again,  fitting  out  cableships  at 
Birkenhead.  Of  the  walk  from  his  lodgings  to 
the  works,  I  find  a  graphic  sketch  in  one  of  his 
letters :  '  Out  over  the  railway  bridge,  along  a 
wide  road  raised  to  th  i  level  of  a  ground  floor 
above  the  land,  which,  not  being  built  upon, 
harbours  puddles,  ponds,  pigs,  and  Irish  hovels ; 
— so  to  the  dock  warehouses,  four  huge  piles  of 
building  with  no  windows,  surrounded  by  a  wall 
about  twelve  feet  high  ; — in  through  the  large 
gates,  round  which  hang  twenty  or  thirty  rusty 
Irish,  playing  pitch  and  toss  and  waiting  for  em- 

(101) 


IO2     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

ployment ; — on  along  the  railway,  which  came 
in  at  the  same  gates  and  which  branches  down 
between  each  vast  block  —  past  a  pilot-engine 
butting  refractory  trucks  into  their  places — on 
to  the  last  block,  [and]  down  the  branch,  sniffing 
the  guano-scented  air  and  detecting  the  old 
bones.  The  hartshorn  flavour  of  the  guano  be- 
comes very  strong,  as  I  near  the  docks  where, 
across  the  Elbas  decks,  a  huge  vessel  is  discharg- 
ing her  cargo  of  the  brown  dust,  and  where  huge 
vessels  have  been  discharging  that  same  cargo 
for  the  last  five  months.'  This  was  the  walk  he 
took  his  young  wife  on  the  morrow  of  his  return. 
She  had  been  used  to  the  society  of  lawyers  and 
civil  servants,  moving  in  that  circle  which  seems 
to  itself  the  pivot  of  the  nation  and  is  in  truth 
only  a  clique  like  another ;  and  Fleeming  was  to 
her  the  nameless  assistant  of  a  nameless  firm  ot 
engineers,  doing  his  inglorious  business,  as  she 
now  saw  for  herself,  among  unsavoury  surround- 
ings. But  when  their  walk  brought  them  with- 
in view  of  the  river,  she  beheld  a  sight  to  her  of 
the  most  novel  beauty :  four  great,  sea-going 
ships  dressed  out  with  flags.  '  How  lovely ! ' 
she  cried.  '  What  is  it  for  ?  ' — '  For  you,'  said 


Fleeming  s  Marriage.  103 

Fleeming.  Her  surprise  was  only  equalled  by 
her  pleasure.  But  perhaps,  for  what  we  may 
call  private  fame,  there  is  no  life  like  that  of  the 
engineer ;  who  is  a  great  man  in  out-of-the-way 
places,  by  the  dockside  or  on  the  desert  island 
or  in  populous  ships,  and  remains  quite  unheard 
of  in  the  coteries  of  London.  And  Fleeming 
had  already  made  his  mark  among  the  few  who 
had  an  opportunity  of  knowing  him. 

His  marriage  was  the  one  decisive  incident  of 
his  career ;  from  that  moment  until  the  day  of 
his  death,  he  had  one  thought  to  which  all  the 
rest  were  tributary,  the  thought  of  his  wife.  No 
one  could  know  him  even  slightly,  and  not  re- 
mark the  absorbing  greatness  of  that  sentiment ; 
nor  can  any  picture  of  the  man  be  drawn  that 
does  not  in  proportion  dwell  upon  it.  This  is  a 
delicate  task ;  but  if  we  are  to  leave  behind  us 
(as  we  wish)  some  presentment  of  the  friend  we 
have  lost,  it  is  a  task  that  must  be  undertaken. 

For  all  his  play  of  mind  and  fancy,  for  all  his 
indulgence — and,  as  time  went  on,  he  grew  in- 
dulgent— Fleeming  had  views  of  duty  that  were 
even  stern.  He  was  too  shrewd  a  student  of  his 
fellow-men  to  remain  long  content  with  rigid 


iO4     Memoir  of  Flceming  Jenkin. 

formulae  of  conduct.  Iron-bound,  impersonal 
ethics,  the  procrustean  bed  of  rules,  he  soon  saw 
at  their  true  value  as  the  deification  of  averages. 
'  As  to  Miss  (I  declare  I  forget  her  name)  being 
bad/  I  find  him  writing,  '  people  only  mean  that 
she  has  broken  the  Decalogue — which  is  not  at 
all  the  same  thing.  People  who  have  kept  in 
the  high-road  of  Life  really  have  less  opportuni- 
ty for  taking  a  comprehensive  view  of  it  than 
those  who  have  leaped  over  the  hedges  and 
strayed  up  the  hills ;  not  but  what  the  hedges 
are  very  necessary,  and  our  stray  travellers  often 
have  a  weary  time  of  it.  So,  you  may  say,  have 
those  in  the  dusty  roads.'  Yet  he  was  himself 
a  very  stern  respecter  of  the  hedgerows ;  sought 
safety  and  found  dignity  in  the  obvious  path  of 
conduct ;  and  would  palter  with  no  simple  and 
recognised  duty  of  his  epoch.  Of  marriage  in 
particular,  of  the  bond  so  formed,  of  the  obliga- 
tions incurred,  of  the  debt  men  owe  to  their 
children,  he  conceived  in  a  truly  antique  spirit : 
not  to  blame  others,  but  to  constrain  himself. 
It  was  not  to  blame,  I  repeat,  that  he  held  these 
views ;  for  others,  he  could  make  a  large  allow- 
ance ;  and  yet  he  tacitly  expected  of  his  friends 


His  Married  Life.  105 

and  his  wife  a  high  standard  of  behaviour.  Nor 
was  it  always  easy  to  wear  the  armour  of  that 
ideal. 

Acting  upon  these  beliefs;  conceiving  that  he 
had  indeed  '  given  himself '  (in  the  full  meaning 
of  these  words)  for  better,  for  worse ;  painfully 
alive  to  his  defects  of  temper  and  deficiency  in 
charm  ;  resolute  to  make  up  for  these  ;  thinking 
last  of  himself:  Fleeming  was  in  some  ways  the 
very  man  to  have  made  a  noble,  uphill  fight  of 
an  unfortunate  marriage.  In  other  ways,  it  is 
true  he  was  one  of  the  most  unfit  for  such  a  trial. 
And  it  was  his  beautiful  destiny  to  remain  to  the 
last  hour  the  same  absolute  and  romantic  lover, 
who  had  shown  to  his  new  bride  the  flag-draped 
vessels  in  the  Mersey.  No  fate  is  altogether 
easy ;  but  trials  are  our  touchstone,  trials  over- 
come our  reward  ;  and  it  was  given  to  Fleeming 
to  conquer.  It  was  given  to  him  to  live  for 
another,  not  as  a  task,  but  till  the  end  as  an  en- 
chanting pleasure.  '  People  may  write  novels,' 
he  wrote  in  1869,  'and  other  people  may  write 
poems,  but  not  a  man  or  woman  among  them 
can  write  to  say  how  happy  a  man  may  be,  who 
is  desperately  in  love  with  his  wife  after  ten 


io6     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

years  of  marriage.'  And  again  in  1885,  after 
more  than  twenty-six  years  of  marriage,  and 
within  but  five  weeks  of  his  death :  '  Your  first 
letter  from  Bournemouth,'  he  wrote,  '  gives  me 
heavenly  pleasure — for  which  I  thank  Heaven 
and  you  too — who  are  my  heaven  on  earth.' 
The  mind  hesitates  whether  to  say  that  such  a 
man  has  been  more  good  or  more  fortunate. 

Any  woman  (it  is  the  defect  of  her  sex)  comes 
sooner  to  the  stable  mind  of  maturity  than  any 
man  ;  and  Jenkin  was  to  the  end  of  a  most  de- 
liberate growth.  In  the  next  chapter,  when  I 
come  to  deal  with  his  telegraphic  voyages  and 
give  some  taste  of  his  correspondence,  the  reader 
will  still  find  him  at  twenty-five  an  arrant-school- 
boy. His  wife  besides  was  more  thoroughly 
educated  than  he.  In  many  ways  she  was  able 
to  teach  him,  and  he  proud  to  be  taught ;  in 
many  ways  she  outshone  him,  and  he  delighted 
to  be  outshone.  All  these  superiorities,  and 
others  that,  after  the  manner  of  lovers,  he  no 
doubt  forged  for  himself,  added  as  time  went  on 
to  the  humility  of  his  original  love.  Only  once, 
in  all  I  know  of  his  career,  did  he  show  a  touch 
of  smallness.  He  could  not  learn  to  sing  cor- 


His  Married  Life.  107 

rectly ;  his  wife  told  him  so  and  desisted  from 
her  lessons ;  and  the  mortification  was  so  sharply 
felt  that  for  years  he  could  not  be  induced  to  go 
to  a  concert,  instanced  himself  as  a  typical  man 
without  an  ear,  and  never  sang  again.  I  tell  it ; 
for  the  fact  that  this  stood  singular  in  his  be- 
haviour, and  really  amazed  all  who  knew  him,  is 
the  happiest  way  I  can  imagine  to  commend  the 
tenor  of  his  simplicity ;  and  because  it  illustrates 
his  feeling  for  his  wife.  Others  were  always 
welcome  to  laugh  at  him  ;  if  it  amused  them,  or 
if  it  amused  him,  he  would  proceed  undisturbed 
with  his  occupation,  his  vanity  invulnerable. 
With  his  wife  it  was  different :  his  wife  had 
laughed  at  his  singing  ;  and  for  twenty  years  the 
fibre  ached.  Nothing,  again,  was  more  notable 
than  the  formal  chivalry  of  this  unmannered  man 
to  the  person  on  earth  with  whom  he  was  the 
most  familiar.  He  was  conscious  of  his  own  in- 
nate and  often  rasping  vivacity  and  roughness 
and  he  was  never  forgetful  of  his  first  visit  to 
the  Austins  and  the  vow  he  had  registered  on 
his  return.  There  was  thus  an  artificial  element 
in  his  punctilio  that  at  times  might  almost  raise 
a  smile.  But  it  stood  on  noble  grounds ;  for 


loS     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jen  kin. 

this  was  how  he  sought  to  shelter  from  his  own 
petulance  the  woman  who  was  to  him  the  sym- 
bol of  the  household  and  to  the  end  the  beloved 
of  his  youth. 

I  wish  in  this  chapter  to  chronicle  small  beer  ; 
taking  a  hasty  glance  at  some  ten  years  of  mar- 
ried life  and  of  professional  struggle  ;  and  re- 
serving till  the  next  all  the  more  interesting 
matter  of  his  cruises.  Of  his  achievements  and 
their  worth,  it  is  not  for  me  to  speak  :  his  friend 
and  partner,  Sir  William  Thomson,  has  con- 
tributed a  note  on  the  subject,  which  will  be 
found  in  the  Appendix,  and  to  which  I  must 
refer  the  reader.  He  is  to  conceive  in  the  mean- 
while for  himself  Fleeming's  manifold  engage- 
ments :  his  service  on  the  Committee  on  Elec- 
trical Standards,  his  lectures  on  electricity  at 
Chatham,  his  chair  at  the  London  University, 
his  partnership  with  Sir  William  Thomson  and 
Mr.  Varley  in  many  ingenious  patents,  his  grow- 
ing credit  with  engineers  and  men  of  science ; 
and  he  is  to  bear  in  mind  that  of  all  this  activity 
and  acquist  of  reputation,  the  immediate  profit 
was  scanty.  Soon  after  his  marriage,  Fleeming 
had  left  the  service  of  Messrs.  Liddell  &  Gordon, 


Professional  Difficulties.  109 

and  entered  into  a  general  engineering  partner- 
ship with  Mr.  Forde,  a  gentleman  in  a  good  way 
of  business.  It  was  a  fortunate  partnership  in 
this,  that  the  parties  retained  their  mutual  re- 
spect unlessened  and  separated  with  regret ;  but 
men's  affairs,  like  men,  have  their  times  of  sick- 
ness, and  by  one  of  these  unaccountable  varia- 
tions, for  hard  upon  ten  years  the  business  was 
disappointing  and  the  profits  meagre.  '  Indit- 
ing drafts  of  German  railways  which  will  never 
get  made ':  it  is  thus  I  find  Fleeming,  not  with- 
out a  touch  of  bitterness,  describe  his  occupa- 
tion. Even  the  patents  hung  fire  at  first.  There 
was  no  salary  to  rely  on ;  children  were  coming 
and  growing  up  ;  the  prospect  was  often  anxious. 
In  the  days  of  his  courtship,  Fleeming  had  writ- 
ten to  Miss  Austin  a  dissuasive  picture  of  the 
trials  of  poverty,  assuring  her  these  were  no  fig- 
ments but  truly  bitter  to  support ;  he  told  her 
this,  he  wrote,  beforehand,  so  that  when  the 
pinch  came  and  she  suffered,  she  should  not  be 
disappointed  in  herself  nor  tempted  to  doubt  her 
own  magnanimity :  a  letter  of  admirable  wisdom 
and  solicitude.  But  now  that  the  trouble  came, 
he  bore  it  very  lightly.  It  was  his  principle,  as 


no     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

he  once  prettily  expressed  it,  '  to  enjoy  each 
day's  happiness,  as  it  arises,  like  birds  or  chil- 
dren.' His  optimism,  if  driven  out  at  the  door, 
would  come  in  again  by  the  window ;  if  it  found 
nothing  but  blackness  in  the  present,  would  hit 
upon  some  ground  of  consolation  in  the  future 
or  the  past.  And  his  courage  and  energy  were 
indefatigable.  In  the  year  1863,  soon  after  the 
birth  of  their  first  son,  they  moved  into  a  cot- 
tage at  Claygate  near  Esher ;  and  about  this  time, 
under  manifold  troubles  both  of  money  and 
health,  I  find  him  writing  from  abroad:  'The 
country  will  give  us,  please  God,  health  and 
strength.  I  will  love  and  cherish  you  more 
than  ever,  you  shall  go  where  you  wish,  you 
shall  receive  whom  you  wish  —  and  as  for 
money  you  shall  have  that  too.  I  cannot  be 
mistaken.  I  have  now  measured  myself  with 
many  men.  I  do  not  feel  weak,  I  do  not 
feel  that  I  shall  fail.  In  many  things  I  have 
succeeded,  and  I  will  in  this.  And  meanwhile 
the  time  of  waiting,  which,  please  Heaven, 
shall  not  be  long,  shall  also  not  be  so  bitter. 
Well,  well,  I  promise  much,  and  do  not  know 
at  this  moment  how  you  and  the  dear  child 


Life  at  Clay  gate.  in 

are.     If  he  is  but  better,  courage,  my  girl,  for  I 
see  light.' 

This  cottage  at  Claygate  stood  just  without 
the  village,  well  surrounded  with  trees  and  com- 
manding a  pleasant  view.  A  piece  of  the  garden 
was  turfed  over  to  form  a  croquet  green,  and 
Fleeming  became  (I  need  scarce  say)  a  very 
ardent  player.  He  grew  ardent,  too,  in  garden- 
ing. This  he  took  up  at  first  to  please  his  wife, 
having  no  natural  inclination ;  but  he  had  no 
sooner  set  his  hand  to  it,  than,  like  everything 
else  he  touched,  it  became  with  him  a  passion. 
He  budded  roses,  he  potted  cuttings  in  the 
coach-house ;  if  there  came  a  change  of  weather 
at  night,  he  would  rise  out  of  bed  to  protect  his 
favourites ;  when  he  was  thrown  with  a  dull 
companion,  it  was  enough  for  him  to  discover 
in  the  man  a  fellow  gardener ;  on  his  travels,  he 
would  go  out  of  his  way  to  visit  nurseries  and 
gather  hints ;  and  to  the  end  of  his  life,  after 
other  occupations  prevented  him  putting  his 
own  hand  to  the  spade,  he  drew  up  a  yearly 
programme  for  his  gardener,  in  which  all  details 
were  regulated.  He  had  begun  by  this  time  to 
write.  His  paper  on  Darwin,  which  had  the 


1 1 2     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

merit  of  convincing  on  one  point  the  philosopher 
himself,  had  indeed  been  written  before  this  in 
London  lodgings ;  but  his  pen  was  not  idle  at 
Claygate ;  and  it  was  here  he  wrote  (among 
other  things)  that  review  of  '  Fecundity,  Fertility, 
Sterility,  and  Allied  Topics]  which  Dr.  Matthews 
Duncan  prefixed  by  way  of  introduction  to  the 
second  edition  of  the  work.  The  mere  act  of 
writing  seems  to  cheer  the  vanity  of  the  most 
incompetent ;  but  a  correction  accepted  by  Dar- 
win, and  a  whole  review  borrowed  and  reprinted 
by  Matthews  Duncan,  are  compliments  of  a  rare 
strain,  and  to  a  man  still  unsuccessful  must  have 
been  precious  indeed.  There  was  yet  a  third  of 
the  same  kind  in  store  for  him  ;  and  when  Munro 
himself  owned  that  he  had  found  instruction  in 
the  paper  on  Lucretius,  we  may  say  that  Fleem- 
ing had  been  crowned  in  the  capitol  of  review- 
ing. 

Croquet,  charades,  Christmas  magic  lanterns 
for  the  village  children,  an  amateur  concert  or  a 
review  article  in  the  evening;  plenty  of  hard 
work  by  day;  regular  visits  to  meetings  of  the 
British  Association,  from  one  of  which  I  find 
hr.-n  characteristically  writing:  'I  cannot  say 


His  Friends  and  Neighbours.     1 1 3 

that  I  have  had  any  amusement  yet,  but  I  am 
enjoying  the  dulness  and  dry  bustle  of  the  whole 
thing ' ;  occasional  visits  abroad  on  business, 
when  he  would  find  the  time  to  glean  (as  I  have 
said)  gardening  hints  for  himself,  and  old  folk- 
songs or  new  fashions  of  dress  for  his  wife ; 
and  the  continual  study  and  care  of  his  chil- 
dren :  these  were  the  chief  elements  of  his  life. 
Nor  were  friends  wanting.  Captain  and  Mrs. 
Jenkin,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Austin,  Clerk  Maxwell, 
Miss  Bell  of  Manchester,  and  others  came  to 
them  on  visits.  Mr.  Hertslet  of  the  Foreign 
Office,  his  wife  and  his  daughter,  were  neigh- 
bours and  proved  kind  friends ;  in  1867  the 
Howitts  came  to  Claygate  and  sought  the 
society  of  '  the  two  bright,  clever  young  peo- 
ple '; '  and  in  a  house  dose  by,  Mr.  Frederick 
Ricketts  came  to  live  with  his  family.  Mr. 
Ricketts  was  a  valued  friend  during  his  short 
life ;  and  when  he  was  lost  with  every  circum- 
stance of  heroism  in  the  La  Plata,  Fleeming 
mourned  him  sincerely. 

I  think  I  shall  give  the  best  idea  of  Fleeming 

1  Reminiscences  of  My  Later  Life,  by  Mary  Howitt 
Good  Words,  May  1886. 


114     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

in  this  time  of  his  early  married  life,  by  a  few 
sustained  extracts  from  his  letters  to  his  wife, 
while  she  was  absent  on  a  visit  in  1864. 

' Nov.  ii. — Sunday  was  too  wet  to  walk  to 
Isleworth,  for  which  I  was  sorry,  so  I  staid  and 
went  to  Church  and  thought  of  you  at  Ardwick 
all  through  the  Commandments,  and  heard  Dr. 

expound  in  a  remarkable  way  a  prophecy 

of  St.  Paul's  about  Roman  Catholics,  which 
mutatis  mutandis  would  do  very  well  for  Prot- 
estants in  some  parts.  Then  I  made  a  little 
nursery  of  Borecole  and  Enfield  market  cabbage, 
grubbing  in  wet  earth  with  leggings  and  gray 
coat  on.  Then  I  tidied  up  the  coach-house  to 
my  own  and  Christine's  admiration.  Then  en- 
couraged by  bouts-rimts  I  wrote  you  a  copy  of 
verses ;  high  time  1  think ;  I  shall  just  save  my 
tenth  year  of  knowing  my  lady-love  without 
inditing  poetry  or  rhymes  to  her. 

'  Then  I  rummaged  over  the  box  with  my 
father's  letters  and  found  interesting  notes  from 
myself.  One  I  should  say  my  first  letter,  which 
little  Austin  I  should  say  would  rejoice  to  see 
and  shall  see — with  a  drawing  of  a  cottage  and 
a  spirited  "  cob."  What  was  more  to  the  pur- 


Letters  to  his   Wife.  1 1 5 

pose,  I  found  with  it  a  paste-cutter  which  Mary 
begged  humbly  for  Christine  and  I  generously 
gave  this  morning. 

'  Then  I  read  some  of  Congreve.  There  are 
admirable  scenes  in  the  manner  of  Sheridan ; 
all  wit  and  no  character,  or  rather  one  character 
in  a  great  variety  of  situations  and  scenes.  I 
could  show  you  some  scenes,  but  others  are  too 
coarse  even  for  my  stomach  hardened  by  a 
course  of  French  novels. 

'  All  things  look  so  happy  for  the  rain. 

'  Nov.  1 6. — Verbenas  looking  well.  ...  I  am 
but  a  poor  creature  without  you ;  I  have  natu- 
rally no  spirit  or  fun  or  enterprise  in  me.  Only 
a  kind  of  mechanical  capacity  for  ascertaining 
whether  two  really  is  half  four,  etc. ;  but  when 
you  are  near  me  I  can  fancy  that  I  too  shine, 
and  vainly  suppose  it  to  be  my  proper  light ; 
whereas  by  my  extreme  darkness  when  you  are 
not  by,  it  clearly  can  only  be  by  a  reflected  brill- 
iance that  I  seem  aught  but  dull.  Then  for 
the  moral  part  of  me:  if  it  were  not  for  you 
and  little  Odden,  I  should  feel  by  no  means 
sure  that  I  had  any  affection  power  in  me.  .  .  . 
Even  the  muscular  me  suffers  a  sad  deteriora- 


n6     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

tion  in  your  absence.  I  don't  get  up  when  I 
ought  to,  I  have  snoozed  in  my  chair  after  din- 
ner; I  do  not  go  in  at  the  garden  with  my 
wonted  vigour,  and  feel  ten  times  as  tired  as 
usual  with  a  walk  in  your  absence  ;  so  you  see, 
when  you  are  not  by,  I  am  a  person  without 
ability,  affections  or  vigour,  but  droop  dull,  self- 
ish, and  spiritless ;  can  you  wonder  that  I  love 
you? 

'Nov.  17. — .  .  .  I  am  very  glad  we  married 
young.  I  would  not  have  missed  these  five 
years,  no,  not  for  any  hopes ;  they  are  my  own. 

'  Nov.  30. — I  got  through  my  Chatham  lecture 
very  fairly  though  almost  all  my  apparatus  went 
astray.  I  dined  at  the  mess,  and  got  home  to 
Isleworth  the  same  evening;  your  father  very 
kindly  sitting  up  for  me. 

' Dec.  I. — Back  at  dear  Claygate.  Many  cut- 
tings flourish,  especially  those  which  do  honour 
to  your  hand.  Your  Californian  annuals  are  up 
and  about.  Badger  is  fat,  the  grass  green.  .  .  . 

'  Dec.  3. — Odden  will  not  talk  of  you,  while 
you  are  away,  having  inherited,  as  I  suspect,  his 
father's  way  of  declining  to  consider  a  subject 
which  is  painful,  as  your  absence  is.  ...  I  cer 


Letters  to  his   Wife.  117 

tainly  should  like  to  learn  Greek  and  I  think  it 
would  be  a  capital  pastime  for  the  long  winter 
evenings.  .  .  .  How  things  are  misrated !  I 
declare  croquet  is  a  noble  occupation  compared 
to  the  pursuits  of  business  men  As  for  so- 
called  idleness — that  is,  one  form  of  it — I  vow 
it  is  the  noblest  aim  of  man.  When  idle,  one 
can  love,  one  can  be  good,  feel  kindly  to  all, 
devote  oneself  to  others,  be  thankful  for  exist- 
ence, educate  one's  mind,  one's  heart,  one's 
body.  When  busy,  as  I  am  busy  now  or  have 
been  busy  to-day,  one  feels  just  as  you  some- 
times felt  when  you  were  too  busy,  owing  to 
want  of  servants. 

'Dec.  5. — On  Sunday  I  was  at  Isleworth,  chiefly 
engaged  in  playing  with  Odden.  We  had  the 
most  enchanting  walk  together  through  the 
brickfields.  It  was  very  muddy,  and,  as  he  re- 
marked, not  fit  for  Nanna,  but  fit  for  us  men. 
The  dreary  waste  of  bared  earth,  thatched  sheds 
and  standing  water,  was  a  paradise  to  him  ;  and 
when  we  walked  up  planks  to  deserted  mixing 
and  crushing  mills,  and  actually  saw  where  the 
clay  was  stirred  with  long  iron  prongs,  and 
chalk  or  lime  ground  with  "  a  tind  of  a  mill," 


1 1 8     Memoir  of  F Iteming  Jen  kin. 

his  expression  of  contentment  and  triumphant 
heroism  knew  no  limit  to  its  beauty.  Of  course 
on  returning  I  found  Mrs.  Austin  looking  out 
at  the  door  in  an  anxious  manner,  and  thinking 
we  had  been  out  quite  long  enough.  ...  I  am 
reading  Don  Quixote  chiefly  and  am  his  fervent 
admirer,  but  I  am  so  sorry  he  did  not  place  his 
affections  on  a  Dulcinea  of  somewhat  worthier 
stamp.  In  fact  I  think  there  must  be  a  mistake 
about  it.  Don  Quixote  might  and  would  serve 
his  lady  in  most  preposterous  fashion,  but  I  am 
sure  he  would  have  chosen  a  lady  of  merit.  He 
imagined  her  to  be  such  no  doubt,  and  drew  a 
charming  picture  of  her  occupations  by  the 
banks  of  the  river;  but  in  his  other  imagina- 
tions, there  was  some  kind  of  peg  on  which 
to  hang  the  false  costumes  he  created  ;  wind- 
mills are  big,  and  wave  their  arms  like  giants ; 
sheep  in  the  distance  are  somewhat  like  an 
army ;  a  little  boat  on  the  river-side  must  look 
much  the  same  whether  enchanted  or  belonging 
to  millers ;  but  except  that  Dulcinea  is  a  wom- 
an, she  bears  no  resemblance  at  all  to  the 
damsel  of  his  imagination.' 

At  the  time  of  these  letters,  the  oldest  son 


Illness  of  Mrs.  F.  Jenkin.        1 1 9 

only  was  born  to  them.  In  September  of  the 
next  year,  with  the  birth  of  the  second,  Charles 
Frewen,  there  befell  Fleeming  a  terrible  alarm 
and  what  proved  to  be  a  lifelong  misfortune. 
Mrs.  Jenkin  was  taken  suddenly  and  alarmingly 
ill ;  Fleeming  ran  a  matter  of  two  miles  to  fetch 
the  doctor,  and  drenched  with  sweat  as  he  was, 
returned  with  him  at  once  in  an  open  gig.  On 
their  arrival  at  the  house,  Mrs.  Jenkin  half  un- 
consciously took  and  kept  hold  of  her  husband's 
hand.  By  the  doctor's  orders,  windows  and 
doors  were  set  open  to  create  a  thorough 
draught,  and  the  patient  was  on  no  account  to 
be  disturbed.  Thus,  then,  did  Fleeming  pass 
the  whole  of  that  night,  crouching  on  the  floor 
in  the  draught,  and  not  daring  to  move  lest  he 
should  wake  the  sleeper.  He  had  never  been 
strong ;  energy  had  stood  him  instead  of  vigour; 
and  the  result  of  that  night's  exposure  was 
flying  rheumatism  varied  by  settled  sciatica. 
Sometimes  it  quite  disabled  him,  sometimes  it 
was  less  acute ;  but  he  was  rarely  free  from  it 
until  his  death.  I  knew  him  for  many  years ; 
for  more  than  ten  we  were  closely  intimate ;  I 
have  lived  with  him  for  weeks ;  and  during  all 


1 20     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

this  time,  he  only  once  referred  to  his  infirmity 
and  then  perforce  as  an  excuse  for  some  trouble 
he  put  me  to,  and  so  slightly  worded  that  I 
paid  no  heed.  This  is  a  good  measure  of  his 
courage  under  sufferings  of  which  none  but  the 
untried  will  think  lightly.  And  I  think  it  worth 
noting  how  this  optimist  was  acquainted  with 
pain.  It  will  seem  strange  only  to  the  super- 
ficial. The  disease  of  pessimism  springs  never 
from  real  troubles,  which  it  braces  men  to  bear, 
which  it  delights  men  to  bear  well.  Nor  does 
it  readily  spring  at  all,  in  minds  that  have  con- 
ceived of  life  as  a  field  of  ordered  duties,  not 
as  a  chase  in  which  to  hunt  for  gratifications. 
'  We  are  not  here  to  be  happy,  but  to  be  good  '; 
I  wish  he  had  mended  the  phrase  :  '  We  are  not 
here  to  be  happy,  but  to  try  to  be  good,'  comes 
nearer  the  modesty  of  truth.  \Vith  such  old- 
fashioned  morality,  it  is  possible  to  get  through 
life,  and  see  the  worst  of  it,  and  feel  some  of 
the  worst  of  it,  and  still  acquiesce  piously  and 
even  gladly  in  man's  fate.  Feel  some  of  the 
worst  of  it,  I  say ;  for  some  of  the  rest  of  the 
worst  is,  by  this  simple  faith,  excluded. 

It  was  in  the  year  1868,  that  the  clouds  finally 


In  the  University  of  Edinburgh.      121 

rose.  The  business  in  partnership  with  Mr 
Forde  began  suddenly  to  pay  well ;  about  the 
same  time  the  patents  showed  themselves  a 
valuable  property ;  and  but  a  little  after, 
Fleeming  was  appointed  to  the  new  chair  of 
engineering  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 
Thus,  almost  at  once,  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ments passed  for  ever  out  of  his  life.  Here  is 
his  own  epilogue  to  the  time  at  Claygate,  and 
his  anticipations  of  the  future  in  Edinburgh. 

'  .  .  .  .  The  dear  old  house  at  Claygate  is 
not  let  and  the  pretty  garden  a  mass  of  weeds. 
I  feel  rather  as  if  we  had  behaved  unkindly  to 
them.  We  were  very  happy  there,  but  now  that 
it  is  over  I  am  conscious  of  the  weight  of  anx- 
iety as  to  money  which  I  bore  all  the  time. 
With  you  in  the  garden,  with  Austin  in  the 
coach-house,  with  pretty  songs  in  the  little,  low 
white  room,  with  the  moonlight  in  the  dear  room 
up-stairs,  ah,  it  was  perfect ;  but  the  long  walk, 
wondering,  pondering,  fearing,  scheming,  and 
the  dusty  jolting  railway,  and  the  horrid  fusty 
office  with  its  endless  disappointments,  they 
are  well  gone.  It  is  well  enough  to  fight  and 
scheme  and  bustle  about  in  the  eager  crowd 


122     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

here  [in  London]  for  a  while  now  and  then,  but 
not  for  a  lifetime.  What  I  have  now  is  just 
perfect.  Study  for  winter,  action  for  summer, 
lovely  country  for  recreation,  a  pleasant  town 
for  talk.  .  .  .' 


CHAPTER  V. 

NOTES  OF  TELEGRAPH  VOYAGES,  1858  TO  1873. 

1T)UT  it  is  now  time  to  see  Jenkin  at  his  life's 
U  work.  I  have  before  me  certain  imperfect 
series  of  letters  written,  as  he  says,  '  at  hazard, 
for  one  does  not  know  at  the  time  what  is  im- 
portant and  what  is  not ':  the  earlier  addressed 
to  Miss  Austin,  after  the  betrothal ;  the  later  to 
Mrs.  Jenkin  the  young  wife.  I  should  premise 
that  I  have  allowed  myself  certain  editorial  free- 
doms, leaving  out  and  splicing  together  much 
as  he  himself  did  with  the  Bona  cable :  thus 
edited  the  letters  speak  for  themselves,  and  will 
fail  to  interest  none  who  love  adventure  or  activ- 
ity. Addressed  as  they  were  to  her  whom  he 
called  his  '  dear  engineering  pupil,'  they  give  a 
picture  of  his  work  so  clear  that  a  child  may  un- 
derstand, and  so  attractive  that  I  am  half  afraid 
their  publication  may  prove  harmful,  and  still 
further  crowd  the  ranks  of  a  profession  already 
overcrowded.  But  their  most  engaging  quality 
is  the  picture  of  the  writer;  with  his  indomi- 

(123) 


1 24     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

table  self-confidence  and  courage,  his  readiness 
in  every  pinch  of  circumstance  or  change  of 
plan,  and  his  ever  fresh  enjoyment  of  the 
whole  web  of  human  experience,  nature,  adven- 
ture, science,  toil  and  rest,  society  and  solitude. 
It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  writer  of 
these  buoyant  pages  was,  even  while  he  wrote, 
harassed  by  responsibility,  stinted  in  sleep  and 
often  struggling  with  the  prostration  of  sea-sick- 
ness. To  this  last  enemy,  which  he  never  over- 
came, I  have  omitted,  in  my  search  after  con- 
densation, a  good  many  references  ;  if  they  were 
all  left,  such  was  the  man's  temper,  they  would 
not  represent  one  hundredth  part  of  what  he 
suffered,  for  he  was  never  given  to  complaint. 
But  indeed  he  had  met  this  ugly  trifle,  as  he 
met  every  thwart  circumstance  of  life,  with  a 
certain  pleasure  of  pugnacity ;  and  suffered  it 
not  to  check  him,  whether  in  the  exercise  of  his 
profession  or  the  pursuit  of  amusement. 

I. 

'  Birkenhead  :  April  18,  1858. 

'Well,  you  should  know,  Mr. having  a 

contract    to   lay  down    a    submarine   telegraph 


The  African   Cable.  125 

from  Sardinia  to  Africa  failed  three  times  in 
the  attempt.  The  distance  from  land  to  land 
is  about  140  miles.  On  the  first  occasion,  after 
proceeding  some  70  miles,  he  had  to  cut  the  ca- 
ble— the  cause  I  forget ;  he  tried  again,  same 
result ;  then  picked  up  about  20  miles  of  the 
lost  cable,  spliced  on  a  new  piece,  and  very 
nearly  got  across  that  time,  but  ran  short  of 
cable,  and  when  but  a  few  miles  off  Galita  in 
very  deep  water,  had  to  telegraph  to  London 
for  more  cable  to  be  manufactured  and  sent  out 
whilst  he  tried  to  stick  to  the  end  :  for  five  days, 
I  think,  he  lay  there  sending  and  receiving  mes- 
sages, but  heavy  weather  coming  on  the  cable 

parted  and  Mr. went  home  in  despair — at 

least  I  should  think  so. 

'  He  then  applied  to  those  eminent  engineers, 
R.  S.  Newall  &  Co.,  who  made  and  laid  down  a 
cable  for  him  last  autumn — Fleeming  Jenkin 
(at  the  time  in  considerable  mental  agitation) 
having  the  honour  of  fitting  out  the  Elba  for 
that  purpose.'  [On  this  occasion,  the  Elba 
has  no  cable  to  lay;  but]  'is  going  out  in  the 
beginning  of  May  to  endeavour  to  fish  up  the 
cables  Mr. -lost.  There  are  two  ends  at  or 


T26     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenktn. 

near  the  shore :  the  third  will  probably  not  be 
found  within  20  miles  from  land.  One  of  these 
ends  will  be  passed  over  a  very  big  pulley  or 
sheave  at  the  bows,  passed  six  times  round  a 
big  barrel  or  drum  ;  which  will  be  turned  round 
by  a  steam  engine  on  deck,  and  thus  wind  up 
the  cable,  while  the  Elba  slowly  steams  ahead. 
The  cable  is  not  wound  round  and  round  the 
drum  as  your  silk  is  wound  on  its  reel,  but  on 
the  contrary  never  goes  round  more  than  six 
times,  going  off  at  one  side  as  it  comes  on  at 
the  other,  and  going  down  into  the  hold  of  the 
Elba  to  be  coiled,  along  in  a  big  coil  or  skein. 

'  I  went  down  to  Gateshead  to  discuss  with 
Mr.  Newall  the  form  which  this  tolerably  sim- 
ple idea  should  take,  and  have  been  busy  since 
I  came  here  drawing,  ordering,  and  putting  up 
the  machinery — uninterfered  with,  thank  good- 
ness, by  any  one.  I  own  I  like  responsibility ; 
it  flatters  one  and  then,  your  father  might  say, 
I  have  more  to  gain  than  to  lose.  Moreover  I 
do  like  this  bloodless,  painless  combat  with 
wood  and  iron,  forcing  the  stubborn  rascals  to 
do  my  will,  licking  the  clumsy  cubs  into  an  act- 
ive shape,  seeing  the  child  of.  to-day's  thought 


Getting  Ready  to  Sail.  127 

working  to-morrow  in  full  vigour  at  his  ap- 
pointed task. 

•  May  12. 

'  By  dint  of  bribing,  bullying,  cajoling,  and  go- 
ing day  by  day  to  see  the  state  of  things  or- 
dered, all  my  work  is  very  nearly  ready  now ; 
but  those  who  have  neglected  these  precautions 
are  of  course  disappointed.  Five  hundred  fath- 
oms of  chain  [were]  ordered  by some  three 

weeks  since,  to  be  ready  by  the  loth  without 
fail;  he  sends  for  it  to-day — 150  fathoms  all 
they  can  let  us  have  by  the  i$th — and  how  the 
rest  is  to  be  got,  who  knows?  He  ordered  a 
boat  a  month  since  and  yesterday  we  could  see 
nothing  of  her  but  the  keel  and  about  two 
planks.  I  could  multiply  instances  without 
end.  At  first  one  goes  nearly  mad  with  vexa- 
tion at  these  things ;  but  one  finds  so  soon  that 
they  are  the  rule,  that  then  it  becomes  necessary 
to  feign  a  rage  one  does  not  feel.  I  look  upon 
it  as  the  natural  order  of  things,  that  if  I  order 
a  thing,  it  will  not  be  done — if  by  accident  it 
gets  done,  it  will  certainly  be  done  wrong:  the 
only  remedy  being  to  watch  the  performance  at 
every  stage. 


128     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

'  To-day  was  a  grand  field-day.  I  had  steam 
up  and  tried  the  engine  against  pressure  or  re- 
sistance. One  part  of  the  machinery  is  driven 
by  a  belt  or  strap  of  leather.  I  always  had  my 
doubts  this  might  slip  ;  and  so  it  did,  wildly.  I 
had  made  provision  for  doubling  it,  putting  on 
two  belts  instead  of  one.  No  use — off  they 
went,  slipping  round  and  off  the  pulleys  in- 
stead of  driving  the  machinery.  Tighten  them 
— no  use.  More  strength  there — down  with  the 
lever — smash  something,  tear  the  belts,  but  get 
them  tight — now  then,  stand  clear,  on  with  the 
steam ; — and  the  belts  slip  away  as  if  nothing 
held  them.  Men  begin  to  look  queer;  the  cir- 
cle of  quidnuncs  make  sage  remarks.  Once 
more — no  use.  I  begin  to  know  I  ought  to 
feel  sheepish  and  beat,  but  somehow  I  feel 
cocky  instead.  I  laugh  and  say,  "  Well,  I  am 
bound  to  break  something  down " — and  sud- 
denly see.  "  Oho,  there's  the  place  ;  get  weight 
on  there,  and  the  belt  won't  slip."  With  much 
labour,  on  go  the  belts  again.  "  Now  then,  a 
spar  thro'  there  and  six  men's  weight  on  ;  mind 
you're  not  carried  away." — "  Ay,  ay,  sir."  But 
evidently  no  one  believes  in  the  plan.  "  Hur« 


The  'Elba'  Sails.  129 

rah,  round  she  goes — stick  to  your  spar.  All 
right,  shut  off  steam."  And  the  difficulty  is 
vanquished. 

'  This  or  such  as  this  (not  always  quite  so  bad) 
occurs  hour  after  hour,  while  five  hundred  tons 
of  coal  are  rattling  down  into  the  holds  and 
bunkers,  riveters  are  making  their  infernal  row 
all  round,  and  riggers  bend  the  sails  and  fit  the 
rigging : — a  sort  of  Pandemonium,  it  appeared 
to  young  Mrs.  Newall,  who  was  here  on  Mon- 
day and  half-choked  with  guano  ;  but  it  suits  the 
likes  o'  me. 

'S.S.  Elba,  River  Mersey:  May  17. 

'  We  are  delayed  in  the  'river  by  some  of  the 
ship's  papers  not  being  ready.  Such  a  scene  at 
the  dock  gates.  Not  a  sailor  will  join  till  the 
last  moment ;  and  then,  just  as  the  ship  forges 
ahead  through  the  narrow  pass,  beds  and  bag- 
gage fly  on  board,  the  men  half  tipsy  clutch  at 
the  rigging,  the  captain  swears,  the  women 
scream  and  sob,  the  crowd  cheer  and  laugh, 
while  one  or  two  pretty  little  girls  stand  still  and 
cry  outright,  regardless  of  all  eyes. 

'  These  two  days  of  comparative  peace  have 
quite  set  me  on  my  legs  again.  I  was  getting 


1 30     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

worn  and  weary  with  anxiety  and  work  As 
usual  I  have  been  delighted  with  my  ship- 
wrights. I  gave  them  some  beer  on  Saturday, 
making  a  short  oration.  To-day  when  they 
went  ashore  and  I  came  on  board,  they  gave 
three  cheers,  whether  for  me  or  the  ship  I  hard- 
ly know,  but  I  had  just  bid  them  good-bye,  and 
the  ship  was  out  of  hail ;  but  I  was  startled  and 
hardly  liked  to  claim  the  compliment  by  ac- 
knowledging it. 

'  S.S.  Elba  :  May  25. 

'My  first  intentions  of  a  long  journal  have 
been  fairly  frustrated  by  sea-sickness.  On  Tues- 
day last  about  noon  we  started  from  the  Mersey 
in  very  dirty  weather,  and  were  hardly  out  of 
the  river  when  we  met  a  gale  from  the  south- 
west and  a  heavy  sea,  both  right  in  our  teeth  ; 
and  the  poor  Elba  had  a  sad  shaking.  Had  I 
not  been  very  sea-sick,  the  sight  would  have 
been  exciting  enough,  as  I  sat  wrapped  in  my 
oilskins  on  the  bridge ;  [but]  in  spite  of  all  my 
efforts  to  talk,  to  eat,  and  to  grin,  I  soon  col- 
lapsed into  imbecility ;  and  I  was  heartily  thank- 
ful towards  evening  to  find  myself  in  bed. 

'  Next  morning,  I  fancied  it  grew  quieter  and, 


In  Holy  head  Harbour.  131 

as  I  lirtened,  heard,  "  Let  go  the  anchor,"  where- 
on I  concluded  we  had  run  into  Holyhead  Har- 
bour, as  was  indeed  the  case.  All  that  day  we 
lay  in  Holyhead,  but  I  could  neither  read  nor 
write  nor  draw.  The  captain  of  another  steamer 
which  had  put  in  came  on  board,  and  we  all  went 
for  a  walk  on  the  hill ;  and  in  the  evening  there 
was  an  exchange  of  presents.  We  gave  some 
tobacco  I  think,  and  received  a  cat,  two  pounds 
of  fresh  butter,  a  Cumberland  ham,  Westward 
Ho !  and  Thackeray's  English  Humourists.  I 
was  astonished  at  receiving  two  such  fair  books 
from  the  captain  of  a  little  coasting  screw.  Our 
captain  said  he  [the  captain  of  the  screw] 
had  plenty  of  money,  five  or  six  hundred  a 
year  at  least. — "  What  in  the  world  makes  him 
go  rolling  about  in  such  a  craft,  then  ? " 
— "  WThy,  I  fancy  he's  reckless ;  he's  desperate 
in  love  with  that  girl  I  mentioned,  and  she 
won't  look  at  him."  Our  honest,  fat,  old  cap- 
tain says  this  very  grimly  in  his  thick,  broad 
voice. 

*  My  head  won't  stand  much  writing  yet,  so  I 
will  run  up  and  take  a  look  at  the  blue  night 
sky  off  the  coast  of  Portugal. 


132     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

'  May  26. 

'  A  nice  lad  of  some  two  and  twenty,  A 

by  name,  goes  out  in  a  nondescript  capacity  as 
part  purser,  part  telegraph  clerk,  part  generally 
useful  person.  A was  a  great  comfort  dur- 
ing the  miseries  [of  the  gale]  ;  for  when  with  a 
dead  head  wind  and  a  heavy  sea,  plates,  books, 
papers,  stomachs  were  being  rolled  about  in  sad 
confusion,  we  generally  managed  to  lie  on  our 
backs,  and  grin,  and  try  discordant  staves  of  the 
Flowers  of  the  Forest  and  the  Low-backed  Car. 
We  could  sing  and  laugh,  when  we  could  do  noth- 
ing else ;  though  A was  ready  to  swear  after 

each  fit  was  past,  that  that  was  the  first  time  he 
had  felt  anything,  and  at  this  moment  would  de- 
clare in  broad  Scotch  that  he'd  never  been  sick  at 
all,  qualifying  the  oath  with  "  except  for  a  minute 
now  and  then."  He  brought  a  cornet-a-piston 
to  practice  on,  having  had  three  weeks'  instruc- 
tions on  that  melodious  instrument ;  and  if  you 
could  hear  the  horrid  sounds  that  come !  especial 
ly  at  heavy  rolls.  When  I  hint  he  is  not  improv- 
ing, there  comes  a  confession  :  "  I  don't  feel  quite 
right  yet,  you  see ! "  But  he  blows  away  manfully, 
and  in  self-defence  I  try  to  roar  the  tune  louder. 


The  Second  Mates  Story.         133 

'11:30  P.M. 

'  Long  past  Cape  St.  Vincent  now.  We  went 
within  about  400  yards  of  the  cliffs  and  light- 
house in  a  calm  moonlight,  with  porpoises 
springing  from  the  sea,  the  men  crooning  long 
ballads  as  they  lay  idle  on  the  forecastle  and  the 
sails  flapping  uncertain  on  the  yards.  As  we 
passed,  there  came  a  sudden  breeze  from  land, 
hot  and  heavy  scented ;  and  now  as  I  write  its 
warm  rich  flavour  contrasts  strongly  with  the 
salt  air  we  have  been  breathing. 

'I  paced  the  deck  with  H ,  the  second 

mate,  and  in  the  quiet  night  drew  a  confession 
that  he  was  engaged  to  be  married,  and  gave 
him  a  world  of  good  advice.  He  is  a  very  nice, 
active,  little  fellow,  with  a  broad  Scotch  tongue 
and  "dirty,  little  rascal"  appearance.  He  had 
a  sad  disappointment  at  starting.  Having  been 
second  mate  on  the  last  voyage,  when  the  first 
mate  was  discharged,  he  took  charge  of  the  Elba 
all  the  time  she  was  in  port,  and  of  course  looked 
forward  to  being  chief  mate  this  trip.  Liddell 
promised  him  the  post.  He  had  not  authority 
to  do  this ;  and  when  Newall  heard  of  it,  he  ap- 
pointed another  man.  Fancy  poor  H having 


134     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

told  all  the  men  and  most  of  all,  his  sweetheart , 
But  more  remains  behind  ;  for  when  it  came  to 

signing  articles,  it  turned  out  that  O ,  the 

new  first  mate,  had  not  a  certificate  which  al- 
lowed him  to  have  a  second  mate.  Then  came 

rather  an  affecting  scene.     For  H proposed 

to  sign  as  chief  (he  having  the  necessary  higher 
certificate)  but  to  act  as  second  for  the  lower 
wages.  At  first  O would  not  give  in,  but  of- 
fered to  go  as  second.  But  our  brave  little  H 

said,  no  :  "  The  owners  wished  Mr.  O to  be 

chief  mate,  and  chief  mate  he  should  be."  So 
he  carried  the  day,  signed  as  chief  and  acts  as 
second.  Shakespeare  and  Byron  are  his  favour- 
ite books.  I  walked  into  Byron  a  little,  but  can 
well  understand  his  stirring  up  a  rough,  young 
sailor's  romance.  I  lent  him  Westward  Ho  from 
the  cabin ;  but  to  my  astonishment  he  did  not 
care  much  for  it ;  he  said  it  smelt  of  the  shilling 
railway  library ;  perhaps  I  had  praised  it  too 
highly.  Scott  is  his  standard  for  novels.  I  am 
very  happy  to  find  good  taste  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  gentlemen,  H having  no  pretensions 

to  that  title.     He  is  a  man  after  my  own  heart. 
*  Then  I  came  down  to  the  cabin  and  heard 


Off  Fort  Genova.  135 

young  A 's   schemes   for  the  future.     His 

highest  picture  is  a  commission  in  the  Prince 
of  Vizianagram's  irregular  horse.  His  eldest 
brother  is  tutor  to  his  Highness's  children,  and 
grand  vizier,  and  magistrate,  and  on  his  Highness's 
household  staff,  and  seems  to  be  one  of  those 
Scotch  adventurers  one  meets  with  and  hears  of 
in  queer  berths — raising  cavalry,  building  palaces, 
and  using  some  petty  Eastern  king's  long  purse 
with  their  long  Scotch  heads. 

'  Off  Bona:  June  4 

'  I  read  your  letter  carefully,  leaning  back  in 
a  Maltese  boat  to  present  the  smallest  surface  of 
my  body  to  a  grilling  sun,  and  sailing  from  the 
Elba  to  Cape  Hamrah  about  three  miles  distant. 
How  we  fried  and  sighed  !  At  last,  we  reached 
land  under  Fort  Genova,  and  I  was  carried  ashore 
pick-a-back,  and  plucked  the  first  flower  I  saw  for 
Annie.  It  was  a  strange  scene,  far  more  novel 
than  I  had  "'imagined :  the  high,  steep  banks  cov- 
ered with  rich,  spicy  vegetation  of  which  I  hard- 
ly knew  one  plant.  The  dwarf  palm  with  fan- 
like  leaves,  growing  about  two  feet  high,  formed 
the  staple  of  the  verdure.  As  we  brushed  through 


136     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

them,  the  gummy  leaves  of  a  cistus  stuck  to  the 
clothes  ;  and  with  its  small  white  flower  and  yel- 
low heart,  stood  for  our  English  dog-rose.  In 
place  of  heather,  we  had  myrtle  and  lentisque 
with  leaves  somewhat  similar.  That  large  bulb 
with  long  flat  leaves?  Do  not  touch  it  if  your 
hands  are  cut ;  the  Arabs  use  it  as  blisters  for 
their  horses.  Is  that  the  same  sort?  No,  take 
that  one  up  ;  it  is  the  bulb  of  a  dwarf  palm,  each 
layer  of  the  onion  peels  off,  brown  and  netted, 
like  the  outside  of  a  cocoa-nut.  It  is  a  clever 
plant  that ;  from  the  leaves  we  get  a  vegetable 
horsehair; — and  eat  the  bottom  of  the  centre 
spike.  All  the  leaves  you  pull  have  the  same 
aromatic  scent.  But  here  a  little  patch  of  cleared 
ground  shows  old  friends,  who  seem  to  cling  by 
abused  civilisation  : — fine,  hardy  thistles,  one  of 
them  bright  yellow,  though ; — honest,  Scotch- 
looking,  large  daisies  or  gowans  ; — potatoes  here 
and  there,  looking  but  sickly ;  and  dark  sturdy 
fig-trees  looking  cool  and  at  their  ease  in  the 
burning  sun. 

*  Here  we  are  at  Fort  Geneva,  crowning  the 
little  point,  a  small  old  building,  due  to  my  old 
Genoese  acquaintance  who  fought  and  traded 


In  Fort  Genova.  137 

bravely  once  upon  a  time.  A  broken  cannon 
of  theirs  forms  the  threshold ;  and  through  a 
dark,  low  arch,  we  enter  upon  broad  terraces 
sloping  to  the  centre,  from  which  rain  water 
may  collect  and  run  into  that  well.  Large- 
breeched  French  troopers  lounge  about  and  are 
most  civil  ;  and  the  whole  party  sit  down  to 
breakfast  in  a  little  white-washed  room,  from 
the  door  of  which  the  long,  mountain  coastline 
and  the  sparkling  sea  show  of  an  impossible  blue 
through  the  openings  of  a  white-washed  ram- 
part. I  try  a  sea-egg,  one  of  those  prickly  fel- 
lows— sea-urchins,  they  are  called  sometimes ; 
the  shell  is  of  a  lovely  purple,  and  when  opened, 
there  are  rays  of  yellow  adhering  to  the  inside ; 
these  I  eat,  but  they  are  very  fishy. 

1  We  are  silent  and  shy  of  one  another,  and 
soon  go  out  to  watch  while  turbaned,  blue- 
breeched,  barelegged  Arabs  dig  holes  for  the 
land  telegraph  posts  on  the  following  principle : 
one  man  takes  a  pick  and  bangs  lazily  at  the 
hard  earth ;  when  a  little  is  loosened,  his  mate 
with  a  small  spade  lifts  it  on  one  side ;  and  da 
capo.  They  have  regular  features  and  look  quite 
in  place  among  the  palms.  Our  English  work- 


138     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

men  screw  the  earthenware  insulators  on  the 
posts,  strain  the  wire,  and  order  Arabs  about  by 

the  generic  term  of  Johnny.     I  find  W has 

nothing  for  me  to  do ;  and  that  in  fact  no  one 
has  anything  to  do.  Some  instruments  for  test- 
ing have  stuck  at  Lyons,  some  at  Cagliari ;  and 
nothing  can  be  done — or  at  any  rate,  is  done. 
I  wander  about,  thinking  of  you  and  staring  at 
big,  green  grasshoppers — locusts,  some  people 
call  them — and  smelling  the  rich  brushwood. 
There  was  nothing  for  a  pencil  to  sketch,  and  I 
soon  got  tired  of  this  work,  though  I  have  paid 
willingly  much  money  for  far  less  strange  and 
lovely  sights. 

'  Off  Cape  Spartivento  :  June  8. 
'  At  two  this  morning,  we  left  Cagliari ;  at 
five  cast  anchor  here.  I  got  up  and  began  pre- 
paring for  the  final  trial ;  and  shortly  afterwards 
everyone  else  of  note  on  board  went  ashore  to 
make  experiments  on  the  state  of  the  cable, 
leaving  me  with  the  prospect  of  beginning  to 
lift  at  12  o'clock.  I  was  not  ready  by  that  time; 
but  the  experiments  were  not  concluded  and 
moreover  the  cable  was  found  to  be  imbedded 
some  four  or  five  feet  in  sand,  so  that  the  boat 


Grappling  for  the  Cable.          139 

could  not  bring  off  the  end.  At  three,  Messrs. 
Liddell,  &c.,  came  on  board  in  good  spirits,  hav- 
ing found  two  wires  good  or  in  such  a  state  as 
permitted  messages  to  be  transmitted  freely. 
The  boat  now  went  to  grapple  for  the  cable 
some  way  from  shore  while  the  Elba  towed  a 
small  lateen  craft  which  was  to  take  back  the 
consul  to  Cagliari  some  distance  on  its  way. 
On  our  return  we  found  the  boat  had  been  un- 
successful ;  she  was  allowed  to  drop  astern, 
while  we  grappled  for  the  cable  in  the  Elba 
[without  more  success].  The  coast  is  a  low 
mountain  range  covered  with  brushwood  or 
heather — pools  of  water  and  a  sandy  beach  at 
their  feet.  I  have  not  yet  been  ashore,  my 

hands  having  been  very  full  all  day. 

'June  9. 

*  Grappling  for  the  cable  outside  the  bank  had 
been  voted  too  uncertain  ;  [and  the  day  was 
spent  in]  efforts  to  pull  the  cable  off  through 
the  sand  which  has  accumulated  over  it.  By 
getting  the  cable  tight  on  to  the  boat,  and  let- 
ting the  swell  pitch  her  about  till  it  got  slack, 
and  then  tightening  again  with  blocks  and  pul- 
leys, we  managed  to  get  out  from  the  beach 


140     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

towards  the  ship  at  the  rate  of  about  twenty 
yards  an  hour.  When  they  had  got  about  ico 
yards  from  shore,  we  ran  round  in  the  Elba  to 
try  and  help  them,  letting  go  the  anchor  in  the 
shallowest  possible  water,  this  was  about  sunset. 
Suddenly  someone  calls  out  he  sees  the  cable  at 
the  bottom :  there  it  was  sure  enough,  appar- 
ently wriggling  about  as  the  waves  rippled. 
Great  excitement ;  still  greater  when  we  find 
our  own  anchor  is  foul  of  it  and  has  been  the 
means  of  bringing  it  to  light.  We  let  go  a 
grapnel,  get  the  cable  clear  of  the  anchor  on  to 
the  grapnel — the  captain  in  an  agony  lest  we 
should  drift  ashore  meanwhile — hand  the  grap- 
pling line  into  the  big  boat,  steam  out  far 
enough,  and  anchor  again.  A  little  more  work 
and  one  end  of  the  cable  is  up  over  the  bows 
round  my  drum.  I  go  to  my  engine  and  we 
start  hauling  in.  All  goes  pretty  well,  but  it  is 
quite  dark.  Lamps  are  got  at  last,  and  men  ar- 
ranged. We  go  on  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  or 
so  from  shore  and  then  stop  at  about  half-past 
nine  with  orders  to  be  up  at  three.  Grand  work 
at  last !  A  number  of  the  Saturday  Review 
here ;  it  reads  so  hot  and  feverish,  so  tomblike 


A  Fortunate  Day.  141 

and  unhealthy,  in  the  midst  of  dear  Nature's 
hills  and  sea,  with  good  wholesome  work  to  do. 
Pray  that  all  go  well  to-morrow. 

'  June  10. 

'  Thank  heaven  for  a  most  fortunate  day.  At 
three  o'clock  this  morning  in  a  damp,  chill  mist 
all  hands  were  roused  to  work.  With  a  small 
delay,  for  one  or  two  improvements  I  had  seen 
to  be  necessary  last  night,  the  engine  started 
and  since  that  time  I  do  not  think  there  has 
been  half  an  hour's  stoppage.  A  rope  to  splice, 
a  block  to  change,  a  wheel  to  oil,  an  old  rusted 
anchor  to  disengage  from  the  cable  which 
brought  it  up,  these  have  been  our  only  ob- 
structions. Sixty,  seventy,  eighty,  a  hundred, 
a  hundred  and  twenty  revolutions  at  last,  my 
little  engine  tears  away.  The  even  black  rope 
comes  straight  out  of  the  blue  heaving  water : 
passes  slowly  round  an  open-hearted,  good-tem- 
pered looking  pulley,  five  feet  diameter;  aft 
past  a  vicious  nipper,  to  bring  all  up  should 
anything  go  wrong  ;  through  a  gentle  guide ;  on 
to  a  huge  bluff  drum,  who  wraps  him  round  his 
body  and  says  "  Come  you  must,"  as  plain  as 
drum  can  speak :  the  chattering  pauls  say  "  I've 


142     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

got  him,  I've  got  him,  he  can't  get  back": 
whilst  black  cable,  much  slacker  and  easier  in 
mind  and  body,  is  taken  by  a  slim  V-pulley  and 
passed  down  into  the  huge  hold,  where  half  a 
dozen  men  put  him  comfortably  to  bed  after  his 
exertion  in  rising  from  his  long  bath.  In  good 
sooth,  it  is  one  of  the  strangest  sights  I  know 
to  see  that  black  fellow  rising  up  so  steadily  in 
the  midst  of  the  blue  sea.  We  are  more  than 
half  way  to  the  place  where  we  expect  the  fault ; 
and  already  the  one  wire,  supposed  previously 
to  be  quite  bad  near  the  African  coast,  can  be 
spoken  through.  I  am  very  glad  I  am  here,  for 
my  machines  are  my  own  children  and  I  look 
on  their  little  failings  with  a  parent's  eye  and 
lead  them  into  the  path  of  duty  with  gentleness 
and  firmness.  I  am  naturally  in  good  spirits, 
but  keep  very  quiet,  for  misfortunes  may  arise 
at  any  instant ;  moreover  to-morrow  my  paying- 
out  apparatus  will  be  wanted  should  all  go  well, 
and  that  will  be  another  nervous  operation. 
Fifteen  miles  are  safely  in ;  but  no  one  knows 
better  than  I  do  that  nothing  is  done  till  all  is 
done. 


Hauling  in  the  Cable.  143 

•June  ii. 

'  9  A.M. — We  have  reached  the  splice  supposed 
to  be  faulty,  and  no  fault  has  been  found.  The 

two  men  learned  in  electricity,  L and 

W ,  squabble  where  the  fault  is. 

'  Even  ing. — A  weary  day  in  a  hot  broiling 

sun  ;  no  air.  After  the  experiments,  L said 

the  fault  might  be  ten  miles  ahead ;  by  that 
time,  we  should  be  according  to  a  chart  in  about 
a  thousand  fathoms  of  water — rather  more  than 
a  mile.  It  was  most  difficult  to  decide  whether 
to  go  on  or  not.  I  made  preparations  for  a 
heavy  pull,  set  small  things  to  rights  and  went 
to  sleep.  About  four  in  the  afternoon,  Mr. 
Liddell  decided  to  proceed,  and  we  are  now  (at 
seven)  grinding  it  in  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  and 
three-quarters  per  hour,  which  appears  a  grand 
speed  to  us.  If  the  paying-out  only  works  well ! 
I  have  just  thought  of  a  great  improvement  in 
it ;  I  can't  apply  it  this  time,  however. — The 
sea  is  of  an  oily  calm,  and  a  perfect  fleet  of 
brigs  and  ships  surrounds  us,  their  sails  hardly 
filling  in  the  lazy  breeze.  The  sun  sets  behind 
the  dim  coast  of  the  Isola  San  Pietro,  the  coasfe 
of  Sardinia  high  and  rugged  becomes  softer  and 


144     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

softer  in  the  distance,  while  to  the  westward 
still  the  isolated  rock  of  Toro  springs  from  the 
horizon. — It  would  amuse  you  to  see  how  cool 
(in  head)  and  jolly  everybody  is.  A  testy  word 
now  and  then  shows  the  wires  are  strained  a  lit- 
tle, but  everyone  laughs  and  makes  his  little 
jokes  as  if  it  were  all  in  fun  :  yet  we  are  all  as 
much  in  earnest  as  the  most  earnest  of  the 
earnest  bastard  German  school  or  demonstrative 
of  Frenchmen.  I  enjoy  it  very  much. 

'June  12. 

•5.30  A.M. — Out  of  sight  of  land :  about 
thirty  nautical  miles  in  the  hold  ;  the  wind  ris- 
ing a  little  ;  experiments  being  made  for  a  fault, 
while  the  engine  slowly  revolves  to  keep  us 
hanging  at  the  same  spot :  depth  supposed 
about  a  mile.  The  machinery  has  behaved  ad- 
mirably. Oh  !  that  the  paying-out  were  over ! 
The  new  machinery  there  is  but  rough,  meant 
for  an  experiment  in  shallow  water,  and  here  we 
are  in  a  mile  of  water. 

'6.30. — I  have  made  my  calculations  and  find 
the  new  paying-out  gear  cannot  possibly  answer 
at  this  depth,  some  portion  would  give  way. 


Hunting  for  the  Faults.  145 

Luckily,  I  have  brought  the  old  things  with  me 
and  am  getting  them  rigged  up  as  fast  as  may 
be.  Bad  news  from  the  cable.  Number  four 
has  given  in  some  portion  of  the  last  ten  miles  : 
the  fault  in  number  three  is  still  at  the  bottom 
of  the  sea :  number  two  is  now  the  only  good 
wire  •  and  the  hold  is  getting  in  such  a  mess, 
through  keeping  bad  bits  out  and  cutting  for 
splicing  and  testing,  that  there  will  be  great  risk 
in  paying  out.  The  cable  is  somewhat  strained 
in  its  ascent  from  one  mile  below  us  ;  what  it 
will  be  when  we  get  to  two  miles  is  a  problem 
we  may  have  to  determine. 

'9  P.M. — A  most  provoking  unsatisfactory 
day.  We  have  done  nothing.  The  wind  and 
sea  have  both  risen.  Too  little  notice  has  been 
given  to  the  telegraphists  who  accompany  this 
expedition ;  they  had  to  leave  all  their  instru- 
ments at  Lyons  in  order  to  arrive  at  Bona  in 
time;  our  tests  are  therefore  of  the  roughest, 
and  no  one  really  knows  where  the  faults  are. 

Mr.  L in  the  morning  lost  much  time  ;  then 

he  told  us,  after  we  had  been  inactive  for  about 
eight  hours,  that  the  fault  in  number  three  was 
within  six  miles  ;  and  at  six  o'clock  in  the  even- 


146     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

ing,  when  all  was  ready  for  a  start  to  pick  up 
these  six  miles,  he  comes  and  says  there  must 
be  a  fault  about  thirty  miles  from  Bona !  By 
this  time  it  was  too  late  to  begin  paying  out  to- 
day, and  we  must  lie  here  moored  in  a  thousand 
fathoms  till  light  to-morrow  morning.  The  ship 
pitches  a  good  deal,  but  the  wind  is  going  down. 

'  June  13,  Sunday. 

'  The  wind  has  not  gone  down,  however.  It 
now  (at  10.30)  blows  a  pretty  stiff  gale,  the  sea 
has  also  risen  ;  and  the  Elba's  bows  rise  and  fall 
about  9  feet.  We  make  twelve  pitches  to  the 
minute,  and  the  poor  cable  must  feel  very  sea- 
sick by  this  time.  We  are  quite  unable  to  do 
anything,  and  continue  riding  at  anchor  in  one 
thousand  fathoms,  the  engines  going  constantly 
so  as  to  keep  the  ship's  bows  up  to  the  cable, 
which  by  this  means  hangs  nearly  vertical  and 
sustains  no  strain  but  that  caused  by  its  own 
weight  and  the  pitching  of  the  vessel.  We 
were  all  up  at  four,  but  the  weather  entirely  for- 
bade work  for  to-day,  so  some  went  to  bed  and 
most  lay  down,  making  up  our  leeway,  as  we 
nautically  term  our  loss  of  sleep.  I  must  say 


Finishing  the  Work.  147 

Liddell  is  a  fine  fellow  and  keeps  his  patience 
and  temper  wonderfully ;  and  yet  how  he  does 
fret  and  fume  about  trifles  at  home  !  This  wind 
has  blown  now  for  36  hours,  and  yet  we  have 
telegrams  from  Bona  to  say  the  sea  there  is  as 
calm  as  a  mirror.  It  makes  one  laugh  to  re- 
member one  is  still  tied  to  the  shore.  Click, 
click,  click,  the  pecker  is  at  work :  I  wonder  what 

Herr  P says  to  Herr  L ,  — tests,  tests, 

tests,  nothing  more.  This  will  be  a  very  anx- 
ious day. 

'  June  14. 

'  Another  day  of  fatal  inaction. 

'June  15. 

'  9.30. — The  wind  has  gone  down  a  deal ;  but 
even  now  there  are  doubts  whether  we  shall 
start  to-day.  When  shall  I  get  back  to  you  ? 

'9  P.M. — Four  miles  from  land.  Our  run  has 
been  successful  and  eventless.  Now  the  work 
is  nearly  over  I  feel  a  little  out  of  spirits — why, 
I  should  be  puzzled  to  say — mere  wantonness, 
or  reaction  perhaps  after  suspense. 

'June  16. 

'  Up  this  morning  at  three,  coupled  my  self- 
acting  gear  to  the  brake  and  had  the  satisfaction 


148     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

of  seeing  it  pay  out  the  last  four  miles  in  very 
good  style.  With  one  or  two  little  improve- 
ments, I  hope  to  make  it  a  capital  thing.  The 
end  has  just  gone  ashore  in  two  boats,  three  out 
of  four  wires  good.  Thus  ends  our  first  expe- 
dition. By  some  odd  chance  a  Tunes  of  June 
the  7th  has  found  its  way  on  board  through  the 
agency  of  a  wretched  old  peasant  who  watches 
the  end  of  the  line  here.  A  long  account  of 
breakages  in  the  Atlantic  trial  trip.  To-night 
we  grapple  for  the  heavy  cable,  eight  tons  to 
the  mile.  I  long  to  have  a  tug  at  him  ;  he  may 
puzzle  me,  and  though  misfortunes  or  rather 
difficulties  are  a  bore  at  the  time,  life  when  work- 
ing with  cables  is  tame  without  them. 

'  2  P.M. — Hurrah,  he  is  hooked,  the  big  fellow, 
almost  at  the  first  cast.  He  hangs  under  our 
bows  looking  so  huge  and  imposing  that  I  could 
find  it  in  my  heart  to  be  afraid  of  him. 

'June  17. 

1  We  went  to  a  little  bay  called  Chia,  where  a 
fresh-water  stream  falls  into  the  sea,  and  took  in 
water.  This  is  rather  a  long  operation,  so  I 
went  a  walk  up  the  valley  with  Mr.  Liddell. 


In  Chia  Bay.  149 

The  coast  here  consists  of  rocky  mountains  800 
to  1,000  feet  high  covered  with  shrubs  of  a 
brilliant  green.  On  landing  our  first  amuse- 
ment was  watching  the  hundreds  of  large  fish 
who  lazily  swam  in  shoals  about  the  river ;  the 
big  canes  on  the  further  side  hold  numberless 
tortoises,  we  are  told,  but  see  none,  for  just  now 
they  prefer  taking  a  siesta.  A  little  further  on, 
and  what  is  this  with  large  pink  flowers  in  such 
abundance? — the  oleander  in  full  flower.  At 
first  I  fear  to  pluck  them,  thinking  they  must 
be  cultivated  and  valuable  ;  but  soon  the  banks 
show  a  long  line  of  thick  tall  shrubs,  one  mass  of 
glorious  pink  and  green.  Set  these  in  a  little  val- 
ley, framed  by  mountains  whose  rocks  gleam  out 
blue  and  purple  colours  such  as  pre-Raphaelites 
only  dare  attempt,  shining  out  hard  and  weird- 
like  amongst  the  clumps  of  castor-oil  plants, 
oistus,  arbor  vitae  and  many  other  evergreens, 
whose  names,  alas !  I  know  not ;  the  cistus  is 
brown  now,  the  rest  all  deep  or  brilliant  green. 
Large  herds  of  cattle  browse  on  the  baked  de- 
posit at  the  foot  of  these  large  crags.  One  or 
two  half-savage  herdsmen  in  sheepskin  kilts,  &c., 
ask  for  cigars ;  partridges  whirr  up  on  either 


150     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

side  of  us ;  pigeons  coo  and  nightingales  sing 
amongst  the  blooming  oleander.  We  get  six 
sheep  and  many  fowls,  too,  from  the  priest  of 
the  small  village ;  and  then  run  back  to  Spar- 
tivento  and  make  preparations  for  the  morning. 

'June  18. 

'  The  big  cable  is  stubborn  and  will  not  be- 
have like  his  smaller  brother.  The  gear  em- 
ployed to  take  him  off  the  drum  is  not  strong 
enough ;  he  gets  slack  on  the  drum  and  plays 
the  mischief.  Luckily  for  my  own  conscience, 
the  gear  I  had  wanted  was  negatived  by  Mr. 
Newall.  Mr.  Liddell  does  not  exactly  blame 
me,  but  he  says  we  might  have  had  a  silver  pul- 
ley cheaper  than  the  cost  of  this  delay.  He  has 
telegraphed  for  more  men  to  Cagliari,  to  try  to 
pull  the  cable  off  the  drum  into  the  hold,  by 
hand.  I  look  as  comfortable  as  I  can,  but  feel 
as  if  people  were  blaming  me.  I  am  trying  my 
best  to  get  something  rigged  which  may  help 
us ;  I  wanted  a  little  difficulty,  and  feel  much 
better. — The  short  length  we  have  picked  up 
was  covered  at  places  with  beautiful  sprays  of 
coral,  twisted  and  twined  with  shells  of  those 


Paying-in  the  Big  Cable.          151 

small,  fairy  animals  we  saw  in  the  aquarium  at 
home;  poor  little  things,  they  died  at  once, 
with  their  little  bells  and  delicate  bright  tints. 

'  12  o  clock. — Hurrah,  victory!  for  the  present 
anyhow.  Whilst  in  our  first  dejection,  I  thought 
I  saw  a  place  where  a  flat  roller  would  remedy 
the  whole  misfortune ;  but  a  flat  roller  at  Cape 
Spartivento,  hard,  easily  unshipped,  running 
freely !  There  was  a  grooved  pulley  used  for 
the  paying-out  machinery  with  a  spindle  wheel, 
which  might  suit  me.  I  filled  him  up  with 
tarry  spunyarn,  nailed  sheet  copper  round  him, 
bent  some  parts  in  the  fire ;  and  we  are  paying- 
in  without  more  trouble  now.  You  would  think 
some  one  would  praise  me ;  no,  no  more  praise 
than  blame  before  ;  perhaps  now  they  think  bet- 
ter of  me,  though. 

4 10  P.M. — We  have  gone  on  very  comfortably 
for  nearly  six  miles.  An  hour  and  a  half  was 
spent  washing  down  ;  for  along  with  many  col- 
oured polypi,  from  corals,  shells  and  insects,  the 
big  cable  brings  up  much  mud  and  rust,  and 
makes  a  fishy  smell  by  no  means  pleasant:  the 
bottom  seems  to  teem  with  life. — But  now  we 
are  startled  by  a  most  unpleasant,  grinding  noise  ; 


152     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

which  appeared  at  first  to  come  from  the  large 
low  pulley,  but  when  the  engines  stopped,  the 
noise  continued ;  and  we  now  imagine  it  is 
something  slipping  down  the  cable,  and  the 
pulley  but  acts  as  sounding-board  to  the  big 
fiddle.  Whether  it  is  only  an  anchor  or  one  of 
the  two  other  cables,  we  know  not.  We  hope 
it  is  not  the  cable  just  laid  down. 

'June  19. 

4 10  A.M. — All  our  alarm  groundless,  it  would 
appear:  the  odd  noise  ceased  after  a  time,  and 
there  was  no  mark  sufficiently  strong  on  the 
large  cable  to  warrant  the  suspicion  that  we  had 
cut  another  line  through.  I  stopped  up  on  the 
look-out  till  three  in  the  morning,  which  made 
23  hours  between  sleep  and  sleep.  One  goes 
dozing  about,  though,  most  of  the  day,  for  it  is 
only  when  something  goes  wrong  that  one  has 
to  look  alive.  Hour  after  hour,  I  stand  on  the 
forecastle-head,  picking  off  little  specimens  of 
polypi  and  coral,  or  lie  on  the  saloon  deck  read- 
ing back  numbers  of  the  Times — till  something 
hitches,  and  then  all  is  hurly-bur.ly  once  more. 
There  are  awnings  all  along  the  ship,  and  a  most 
ancient,  fish-like  smell  beneath. 


The  Cables  Cross.  153 

'  I  o  clock. — Suddenly  a  great  strain  in  only 
95  fathoms  of  water — belts  surging  and  general 
dismay ;  grapnels  being  thrown  out  in  the  hope 
of  finding  what  holds  the  cable.— Should  it 
prove  the  young  cable!  We  are  apparently 
crossing  its  path — not  the  working  one,  but  the 
lost  child  ;  Mr.  Liddell  would  start  the  big  one 
first  though  it  was  laid  first :  he  wanted  to  see 
the  job  done,  and  meant  to  leave  us  to  the 
small  one  unaided  by  his  presence. 

'3.30. — Grapnel  caught  something,  lost  it 
again  ;  it  left  its  marks  on  the  prongs.  Started 
lifting  gear  again ;  and  after  hauling  in  some 
50  fathoms — grunt,  grunt,  grunt — we  hear  the 
other  cable  slipping  down  our  big  one,  playing 
the  selfsame  tune  we  heard  last  night — louder, 
however. 

'  10  P.M. — The  pull  on  the  deck  engines  be- 
came harder  and  harder.  I  got  steam  up  in  a 
boiler  on  deck,  and  another  little  engine  starts 
hauling  at  the  grapnel.  I  wonder  if  there  ever 
was  such  a  scene  of  confusion :  Mr.  Liddell  and 
W and  the  captain  all  giving  orders  contra- 
dictory, &c.,  on  the  forecastle ;  D ,  the  fore- 
man of  our  men,  the  mates,  &c.,  following  the 


1 54     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jen  kin. 

example  of  our  superiors;  the  ship's  engine  and 
boilers  below,  a  5o-horse  engine  on  deck,  a 
boiler  14  feet  long  on  deck  beside  it,  a  little 
steam  winch  tearing  round  ;  a  dozen  Italians  (20 
have  come  to  relieve  our  hands,  the  men  we 
telegraphed  for  to  Cagliari)  hauling  at  the  rope ; 
wiremen,  sailors,  in  the  crevices  left  by  ropes 
and  machinery ;  everything  that  could  swear 
swearing — I  found  myself  swearing  like  a 
trooper  at  last.  We  got  the  unknown  difficulty 
within  ten  fathoms  of  the  surface;  but  then  the 
forecastle  got  frightened  that,  if  it  was  the  small 
cable  which  we  had  got  hold  of,  we  should  cer- 
tainly break  it  by  continuing  the  tremendous 
and  increasing  strain.  So  at  last  Mr.  Liddell 
decided  to  stop ;  cut  the  big  cable,  buoying  its 
end ;  go  back  to  our  pleasant  watering-place  at 
Chia,  take  more  water  and  start  lifting  the  small 
cable.  The  end  of  the  large  one  has  even  now 
regained  its  sandy  bed  ;  and  three  buoys — one 
to  grapnel  foul  of  the  supposed  small  cable,  two 
to  the  big  cable — are  dipping  about  on  the  sur- 
face. One  more — a  flag-buoy — will  soon  follow, 
and  thert  straight  for  shore. 


The  Small  Cable.  155 

'  June  20. 

'  It  is  an  ill-wind,  &c.  I  have  an  unexpected 
opportunity  of  forwarding  this  engineering  let- 
•  ter;  for  the  craft  which  brought  out  pur  Italian 
sailors  must  return  to  Cagliari  to-night,  as  the 
little  cable  will  take  us  nearly  to  Galita,  and  the 
Italian  skipper  could  hardly  find  his  way  from 
thence.  To-day — Sunday — not  much  rest.  Mr. 
Liddell  is  at  Spartivento  telegraphing.  We  are 
at  Chia,  and  shall  shortly  go  to  help  our  boat's 
crew  in  getting  the  small  cable  on  board.  We 
dropped  them  some  time  since  in  order  that  they 
might  dig  it  out  of  the  sand  as  far  as  possible. 

1  June  21. 

'  Yesterday — Sunday  as  it  was — all  hands  were 
kept  at  work  all  day,  coaling,  watering,  and  mak- 
ing a  futile  attempt  to  pull  the  cable  from  the 
shore  on  board  through  the  sand.  This  attempt 
was  rather  silly  after  the  experience  we  had 
gained  at  Cape  Spartivento.  This  morning  we 
grappled,  hooked  the  cable  at  once,  and  have 
made  an  excellent  start.  Though  I  have  called 
this  the  small  cable,  it  is  much  larger  than  the 
Bona  one. — Here  comes  a  break  down  and  a 
bad  one. 


156     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

'June  22. 

'  We  got  over  it,  however ;  but  it  is  a  warning 
to  me  that  my  future  difficulties  will  arise  from 
parts  wearing  out.  Yesterday  the  cable  was 
often  a  lovely  sight,  coming  out  of  the  water 
one  large  incrustation  of  delicate,  net-like  corals 
and  long,  white  curling  shells.  No  portion  of 
the  dirty  black  wires  was  visible ;  instead  we 
had  a  garland  of  soft  pink  with  little  scarlet 
sprays  and  white  enamel  intermixed.  All  was 
fragile,  however,  and  could  hardly  be  secured  in 
safety ;  and  inexorable  iron  crushed  the  tender 
leaves  to  atoms. — This  morning  at  the  end  of 
my  watch,  about  4  o'clock,  we  came  to  the 
buoys,  proving  our  anticipations  right  concern- 
ing the  crossing  of  the  cables.  I  went  to  bed 
for  four  hours,  and  on  getting  up,  found  a  sad 
mess.  A  tangle  of  the  six-wire  cable  hung  to 
the  grapnel  which  had  been  left  buoyed,  and  the 
small  cable  had  parted  and  is  lost  for  the  present. 
Our  hauling  of  the  other  day  must  have  done 
the  mischief. 

'June  23. 

'  We  contrived  to  get  the  two  ends  of  the 
large  cable  and  to  pick  the  short  end  up.  The 


Mode  of  Dredging.  157 

long  end,  leading  us  seaward,  was  next  put  round 
the  drum  and  a  mile  of  it  picked  up ;  but  then, 
fearing  another  tangle,  the  end  was  cut  and 
buoyed,  and  we  returned  to  grapple  for  the 
three-wire  cable.  All  this  is  very  tiresome  for 
me.  The  buoying  and  dredging  are  managed 
entirely  by  W ,  who  has  had  much  experi- 
ence in  this  sort  of  thing ;  so  I  have  not  enough 
to  do  and  get  very  homesick.  At  noon  the 
wind  freshened  and  the  sea  rose  so  high  that  we 
had  to  run  for  land  and  are  once  more  this  even, 
ing  anchored  at  Chia. 

•  June  24. 

'  The  whole  day  spent  in  dredging  without 
success.  This  operation  consists  in  allowing  the 
ship  to  drift  slowly  across  the  line  where  you 
expect  the  cable  to  be,  while  at  the  end  of  a 
long  rope,  fast  either  to  the  bow  or  stern,  a 
grapnel  drags  along  the  ground.  This  grapnel 
is  a  small  anchor,  made  like  four  pot-hooks  tied 
back  to  back.  When  the  rope  gets  taut,  the 
ship  is  stopped  and  the  grapnel  hauled  up  to 
the  surface  in  the  hopes  of  finding  the  cable  on 
its  prongs. — I  am  much  discontented  with  my- 
self for  idly  lounging  about  and  reading  West- 


158     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

ward  Ho  for  the  second  time,  instead  of  taking 
to  electricity  or  picking  up  nautical  information. 
I  am  uncommonly  idle.  The  sea  is  not  quite 
so  rough,  but  the  weather  is  squally  and  the  rain 
comes  in  frequent  gusts. 

•June  25. 

'  To-day  about  I  o'clock  we  hooked  the  three- 
wire  cable,  buoyed  the  long  sea  end,  and  picked 
up  the  short  [or  shore]  end.  Now  it  is  dark  and 
we  must  wait  for  morning  before  lifting  the 
buoy  we  lowered  to-day  and  proceeding  sea- 
wards.— The  depth  of  water  here  is  about  600 
feet,  the  height  of  a  respectable  English  hill ; 
our  fishing  line  was  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
long.  It  blows  pretty  fresh,  and  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  sea. 

•  26th. 

'  This  morning  it  came  on  to  blow  so  heavily 
that  it  was  impossible  to  take  up  our  buoy. 
The  Elba  recommenced  rolling  in  true  Baltic 
style  and  towards  noon  we  ran  for  land. 

'27th,  Sunday. 

'  This  morning  was  a  beautiful  calm.  We 
reached  the  buoys  at  about  4.30  and  com- 


Kinks.  159 

menced  picking  up  at  •  6.30.  Shortly  a  new 
cause  of  anxiety  arose.  Kinks  came  up  in 
great  quantities,  about  thirty  in  the  hour.  To 
have  a  true  conception  of  a  kink,  you  must  see 
one :  it  is  a  loop  drawn  tight,  all  the  wires  get 
twisted  and  the  gutta-percha  inside  pushed  out. 
These  much  diminish  the  value  of  the  cable,  as 
they  must  all  be  cut  out,  the  gutta-percha  made 
good,  and  the  cable  spliced.  They  arise  from 
the  cable  having  been  badly  laid  down  so  that 
it  forms  folds  and  tails  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 
These  kinks  have  another  disadvantage :  they 
weaken  the  cable  very  much.  —  At  about  six 
o'clock  [P.M.]  we  had  some  twelve  miles  lifted, 
when  I  went  to  the  bows ;  the  kinks  were  ex- 
ceedingly tight  and  were  giving  way  in  a  most 
alarming  manner.  I  got  a  cage  rigged  up  to 
prevent  the  end  (if  it  broke)  from  hurting  any- 
one, and  sat  down  on  the  bowsprit,  thinking  I 
should  describe  kinks  to  Annie : — suddenly  I 
saw  a  great  many  coils  and  kinks  altogether  at 
the  surface.  I  jumped  to  the  gutta-percha  pipe, 
by  blowing  through  which  the  signal  is  given  to 
stop  the  engine.  I  blow,  but  the  engine  does 
not  stop  ;  again — no  answer :  the  coils  and  kinks 


160     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

jam  in  the  bows  and  I  rush  aft  shouting  stop  , 
Too  late :  the  cable  had  parted  and  must  lie  in 
peace  at  the  bottom.  Someone  had  pulled  the 
gutta-percha  tube  across  a  bare  part  of  the  steam 
pipe  and  melted  it.  It  had  been  used  hundreds 
of  times  in  the  last  few  days  and  gave  no  symp- 
toms of  failing.  I  believe  the  cable  must  have 
gone  at  any  rate ;  however,  since  it  went  in  my 
watch  and  since  I  might  have  secured  the  tub- 
ing more  strongly,  I  feel  rather  sad 

4  June  28. 

'  Since  I  could  not  go  to  Annie  I  took  down 
Shakespeare,  and  by  the  time  I  had  finished 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  read  the  second  half  of 
Troilus  and  got  some  way  in  Coriolamis,  I  felt 
it  was  childish  to  regret  the  accident  had  hap- 
pened in  my  watch,  and  moreover  I  felt  myself 
not  much  to  blame  in  the  tubing  matter — it  had 
been  torn  down,  it  had  not  fallen  down ;  so  I 
went  to  bed,  and  slept  without  fretting,  and 
woke  this  morning  in  the  same  good  mood — 
for  which  thank  you  and  our  friend  Shake- 
speare. I  am  happy  to  say  Mr.  Liddell  said 
the  loss  of  the  cable  did  not  much  matter ; 


More  Kinks.  161 

though  this  would  have  been  no  consolation 
had  I  felt  myself  to  blame. — This  morning  we 
have  grappled  for  and  found  another  length  of 
small  cable  which  Mr. dropped  in  100  fath- 
oms of  water.  If  this  also  gets  full  of  kinks,  we 
shall  probably  have  to  cut  it  after  10  miles  or 
so,  or  more  probably  still  it  will  part  of  its  own 
free  will  or  weight. 

'  10  P.M. — This  second  length  of  three-wire 
cable  soon  got  into  the  same  condition  as  its 
fellow — i.  e.  came  up  twenty  kinks  an  hour — 
and  after  seven  miles  were  in,  parted  on  the 
pulley  over  the  bows  at  one  of  the  said  kinks ; 
during  my  watch  again,  but  this  time  no  earthly 
power  could  have  saved  it.  I  had  taken  all 
manner  of  precautions  to  prevent  the  end  do- 
ing any  damage  when  the  smash  came,  for  come 
I  knew  it  must.  We  now  return  to  the  six-wire 
cable.  As  I  sat  watching  the  cable  to-night, 
large  phosphorescent  globes  kept  rolling  from 
it  and  fading  in  the  black  water. 

'  2gth. 

1  To-day  we  returned  to  the  buoy  we  had  left 
at  the  end  of  the  six-wire  cable,  and  after  much 
trouble  from  a  series  of  tangles,  got  a  fair  start 


1 62     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

at  noon.  You  will  easily  believe  a  tangle  of  iron 
rope  inch  and  a  half  diameter  is  not  easy  to  un- 
ravel, especially  with  a  ton  or  so  hanging  to 
the  ends.  It  is  now  eight  o'clock  and  we  have 
about  six  and  a  half  miles  safe :  it  becomes  very 
exciting,  however,  for  the  kinks  are  coming  fast 
and  furious. 

'Julys. 

'  Twenty-eight  miles  safe  in  the  hold.  The 
ship  is  now  so  deep,  that  the  men  are  to  be 
turned  out  of  their  aft  hold,  and  the  remainder 
coiled  there ;  so  the  good  Elbas  nose  need  not 
burrow  too  far  into  the  waves.  There  can  only 
be  about  10  or  12  miles  more,  but  these  weigh 
80  or  100  tons. 

'July  s- 

'  Our  first  mate  was  much  hurt  in  securing  a 
buoy  on  the  evening  of  the  2nd.  As  interpre- 
ter [with  the  Italians]  I  am  useful  in  all  these 
cases ;  but  for  no  fortune  would  I  be  a  doctor 
to  witness  these  scenes  continually.  Pain  is  a 
terrible  thing. — Our  work  is  done :  the  whole  of 
the  six-wire  cable  has  been  recovered ;  only  a 
small  part  of  the  three-wire,  but  that  wire  was 
bad  and,  owing  to  its  twisted  state,  the  value 


The  Greek  Isles.  163 

small.    We  may  therefore  be  said  to  have  been 
very  successful.' 


II. 

I  have  given  this  cruise  nearly  in  full.  From 
the  notes,  unhappily  imperfect,  of  two  others,  I 
will  take  only  specimens ;  for  in  all  there  are 
features  of  similarity  and  it  is  possible  to  have 
too  much  even  of  submarine  telegraphy  and  the 
romance  of  engineering.  And  first  from  the 
cruise  of  1859  m  *ne  Greek  Islands  and  to  Al- 
exandria, take  a  few  traits,  incidents  and  pic- 
tures. 

'  May  10,  1859. 

'  We  had  a  fair  wind  and  we  did  very  well, 
seeing  a  little  bit  of  Cerig  or  Cythera,  and  lots 
of  turtle-doves  wandering  about  over  the  sea 
and  perching,  tired  and  timid,  in  the  rigging  of 
our  little  craft.  Then  Falconera,  Antimilo,  and 
Milo,  topped  with  huge  white  clouds,  barren, 
deserted,  rising  bold  and  mysterious  from  the 
blue,  chafing  sea;  —  Argentiera,  Siphano,  Sca- 
pho,  Paros,  Antiparos,  and  late  at  night  Syra  it- 
self. Adam  Bede  in  one  hand,  a  sketch-book  in 


164     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

the  other,  lying  on  rugs  under  an  awning,  I  en- 
joyed a  very  pleasant  day. 

•May  14. 

'Syra  is  semi-eastern.  The  pavement,  huge 
shapeless  blocks  sloping  to  a  central  gutter; 
from  this  bare  two-storied  houses,  sometimes 
plaster  many  coloured,  sometimes  rough-hewn 
marble,  rise,  dirty  and  ill-finished  to  straight, 
plain,  flat  roofs;  shops  guiltless  of  windows, 
with  signs  in  Greek  letters;  dogs,  Greeks  in 
blue,  baggy,  Zouave  breeches  and  a  fez,  a  few 
narghilehs  and  a  sprinkling  of  the  ordinary  con- 
tinental shopboys. — In  the  evening  I  tried  one 
more  walk  in  Syra  with  A ,  but  in  vain  en- 
deavoured to  amuse  myself  or  to  spend  money ; 
the  first  effort  resulting  in  singing  Doodah  to  a 
passing  Greek  or  two,  the  second  in  spending, 
no,  in  making  A spend,  threepence  on  cof- 
fee for  three. 

'  May  16. 

'  On  coming  on  deck,  I  found  we  were  at  an- 
chor in  Canea  bay,  and  saw  one  of  the  most 
lovely  sights  man  could  witness.  Far  on  either 
hand  stretch  bold  mountain  capes,  Spada  and 
Maleka,  tender  in  colour,  bold  in  outline ;  rich 


In   Canea.  165 

sunny  levels  lie  beneath  them,  framed  by  the 
azure  sea.  Right  in  front,  a  dark  brown  for- 
tress girdles  white  mosques  and  minarets.  Rich 
and  green,  our  mountain  capes  here  join  to  form 
a  setting  for  the  town,  in  whose  dark  walls — 
still  darker — open  a  dozen  high-arched  caves  in 
which  the  huge  Venetian  galleys  used  to  lie  in 
wait.  High  above  all,  higher  and  higher  yet, 
up  into  the  firmament,  range  after  range  of  blue 
and  snow-capped  mountains.  I  was  bewildered 
and  amazed,  having  heard  nothing  of  this  great 
beauty.  The  town  when  entered  is  quite  east- 
ern. The  streets  are  formed  of  open  stalls  un- 
der the  first  story,  in  which  squat  tailors,  cooks, 
sherbet  vendors  and  the  like,  busy  at  their  work 
or  smoking  narghilehs.  Cloths  stretched  from 
house  to  house  keep  out  the  sun.  Mules  rattle 
through  the  crowd  ;  curs  yelp  between  your  legs  ; 
negroes  are  as  hideous  and  bright  clothed  as 
usual ;  grave  Turks  with  long  chibouques  con- 
tinue to  march  solemnly  without  breaking 
them ;  a  little  Arab  in  one  dirty  rag  pokes  fun 
at  two  splendid  little  Turks  with  brilliant  fezzes  ; 
wiry  mountaineers  in  dirty,  full,  white  kilts, 
shouldering  long  guns  and  one  hand  on  their 


1 66     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

pistols,  stalk  untamed  past  a  dozen  Turkish 
soldiers,  who  look  sheepish  and  brutal  in  worn 
cloth  jacket  and  cotton  trousers.  A  headless, 
wingless  lion  of  St.  Mark  still  stands  upon  a 
gate,  and  has  left  the  mark  of  his  strong  clutch. 
Of  ancient  times  when  Crete  was  Crete,  not  a 
trace  remains ;  save  perhaps  in  the  full,  well-cut 
nostril  and  firm  tread  of  that  mountaineer,  and 
I  suspect  that  even  his  sires  were  Albanians, 
mere  outer  barbarians. 

'May  17. 

'  I  spent  the  day  at  the  little  station  where 
the  cable  was  landed,  which  has  apparently  been 
first  a  Venetian  monastery  and  then  a  Turkish 
mosque.  At  any  rate  the  big  dome  is  very  cool, 
and  the  little  ones  hold  [our  electric]  batteries 
capitally.  A  handsome  young  Bashibazouk 
guards  it,  and  a  still  handsomer  mountaineer 
is  the  servant;  so  I  draw  them  and  the  monas- 
tery and  the  hill,  till  I'm  black  in  the  face  with 
heat  and  come  on  board  to  hear  the  Canea  cable 
is  still  bad. 

'  May  23. 

1  We  arrived  in  the  morning  at  the  east  end 
of  Candia,  and  had  a  glorious  scramble  over 


The  '.Elba'  Aground.  167 

the  mountains  which  seem  built  of  adamant, 
Time  has  worn  away  the  softer  portions  of  the 
rock,  only  leaving  sharp  jagged  edges  of  steel. 
Sea  eagles  soaring  above  our  heads ;  old  tanks, 
ruins,  and  desolation  at  our  feet.  The  ancient 
Arsinoe  stood  here ;  a  few  blocks  of  marble 
with  the  cross  attest  the  presence  of  Venetian 
Christians ;  but  now — the  desolation  of  deso- 
lations. Mr.  Liddell  and  I  separated  from  the 
rest,  and  when  we  had  found  a  sure  bay  for  the 
cable,  had  a  tremendous  lively  scramble  back  to 
the  boat.  These  are  the  bits  of  our  life  which 
I  enjoy,  which  have  some  poetry,  some  gran- 
deur in  them. 

'  May  29  (?). 

'  Yesterday  we  ran  round  to  the  new  harbour 
[of  Alexandria],  landed  the  shore  end  of  the 
cable  close  to  Cleopatra's  bath,  and  made  a 
very  satisfactory  start  about  one  in  the  after- 
noon. We  had  scarcely  gone  200  yards  when  I 
noticed  that  the  cable  ceased  to  run  out,  and  I 
wondered  why  the  ship  had  stopped.  People 
ran  aft  to  tell  me  not  to  put  such  a  strain  on 
the  cable;  I  answered  indignantly  that  there 
was  no  strain ;  and  suddenly  it  broke  on  every 


io8     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

one  in  the  ship  at  once  that  we  were  aground 
Here  was  a  nice  mess.  A  violent  scitocco  blew 
from  the  land;  making  one's  skin  feel  as  if  it 
belonged  to  some  one  else  and  didn't  fit,  making 
the  horizon  dim  and  yellow  with  fine  sand,  op- 
pressing every  sense  and  raising  the  thermom- 
eter 20  degrees  in  an  hour,  but  making  calm 
water  round  us  which  enabled  the  ship  to  lie 
for  the  time  in  safety.  The  wind  might  change 
at  any  moment,  since  the  scirocco  was  only  ac- 
cidental ;  and  at  the  first  wave  from  seaward 
bump  would  go  the  poor  ship,  and  there  would 
[might]  be  an  end  of  our  voyage.  The  captain, 
without  waiting  to  sound,  began  to  make  an 
effort  to  put  the  ship  over  what  was  supposed  to 
be  a  sandbank  ;  but  by  the  time  soundings  were 
made,  this  was  found  to  be  impossible,  and  he 
had  only  been  jamming  the  poor  Elba  faster  on 
a  rock.  Now  every  effort  was  made  to  get  her 
astern,  an  anchor  taken  out,  a  rope  brought  to 
a  winch  I  had  for  the  cable,  and  the  engines 
backed  ;  but  all  in  vain.  A  small  Turkish  Gov- 
ernment steamer,  which  is  to  be  our  consort, 
came  to  our  assistance,  but  of  course  very  slowly, 
and  much  time  was  occupied  before  we  could 


The  'Elba'  still  Aground.        169 

get  a  hawser  to  her.  I  could  do  no  good  after 
having  made  a  chart  of  the  soundings  round 
the  ship,  and  went  at  last  on  to  the  bridge  to 
sketch  the  scene.  But  at  that  moment  the 
strain  from  the  winch  and  a  jerk  from  the  Turk- 
ish steamer  got  off  the  boat,  after  we  had  been 
some  hours  aground.  The  carpenter  reported 
that  she  had  made  only  two  inches  of  water  in 
one  compartment ;  the  cable  was  still  uninjured 
astern,  and  our  spirits  rose ;  when,  will  you  be- 
lieve it  ?  after  going  a  short  distance  astern,  the 
pilot  ran  us  once  more  fast  aground  on  what 
seemed  to  me  nearly  the  same  spot.  The  very 
same  scene  was  gone  through  as  on  the  first  oc- 
casion, and  dark  came  on  whilst  the  wind  shift- 
ed, and  we  were  still  aground.  Dinner  was 
served  up,  but  poor  Mr.  Liddell  could  eat  very 
little;  and  bump,  bump,  grind,  grind,  went  the 
ship  fifteen  or  sixteen  times  as  we  sat  at  dinner. 
The  slight  sea,  however,  did  enable  us  to  bump 
off.  This  morning  we  appear  not  to  have  suf- 
fered in  any  way ;  but  a  sea  is  rolling  in,  which 
a  few  hours  ago  would  have  settled  the  poor  old 
Elba. 


1 70     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

'June  — . 

'  The  Alexandria  cable  has  again  failed  ;  after 
paying  out  two-thirds  of  the  distance  success- 
fully, an  unlucky  touch  in  deep  water  snapped 
the  line.  Luckily  the  accident  occurred  in  Mr. 
Liddell's  watch.  Though  personally  it  may  not 
really  concern  me,  the  accident  weighs  like  a 
personal  misfortune.  Still  I  am  glad  I  was  pres- 
ent :  a  failure  is  probably  more  instructive  than 
a  success ;  and  this  experience  may  enable  us  tc 
avoid  misfortune  in  still  greater  undertakings. 

'  June  — . 

'  We  left  Syra  the  morning  after  our  arrival 
on  Saturday  the  4th.  This  we  did  (first)  be- 
cause we  were  in  a  hurry  to  do  something  and 
(second)  because,  coming  from  Alexandria,  we 
had  four  days'  quarantine  to  perform.  We  were 
all  mustered  along  the  side  while  the  doctor 
counted  us ;  the  letters  were  popped  into  a  lit- 
tle tin  box  and  taken  away  to  be  smoked ;  the 
guardians  put  on  board  to  see  that  we  held  no 
communication  with  the  shore — without  them 
we  should  still  have  had  four  more  days'  quar. 
antine ;  and  with  twelve  Greek  sailors  besides, 


The  Canea  Cable.  171 

we  started  merrily  enough  picking  up  the  Canea 
cable.  ...  To  our  utter  dismay,  the  yarn  cov- 
ering began  to  come  up  quite  decayed,  and  the 
cable,  which  when  laid  should  have  borne  half 
a  ton,  was  now  in  danger  of  snapping  with  a 
tenth  part  of  that  strain.  We  went  as  slow  as 
possible  in  fear  of  a  break  at  every  instant.  My 
watch  was  from  eight  to  twelve  in  the  morning, 
and  during  that  time  we  had  barely  secured 
three  miles  of  cable.  Once  it  broke  inside  the 
ship,  but  I  seized  hold  of  it  in  time — the  weight 
being  hardly  anything — and  the  line  for  the 
nonce  was  saved.  Regular  nooses  were  then 
planted  inboard  with  men  to  draw  them  taut, 

should  the  cable  break  inboard.     A ,  who 

should  have  relieved  me,  was  unwell,  so  I  had 
to  continue  my  look-out ;  and  about  one  o'clock 
the  line  again  parted,  but  was  again  caught  in 
the  last  noose,  with  about  four  inches  to  spare. 
Five  minutes  afterwards  it  again  parted  and 
was  yet  once  more  caught.  Mr.  Liddell  (whom 
I  had  called)  could  stand  this  no  longer ;  so  we 
buoyed  the  line  and  ran  into  a  bay  in  Siphano, 
waiting  for  calm  weather,  though  I  was  by  no 
means  of  opinion  that  the  slight  sea  and  wind 


172     Memoir  of  Flceming  Jenkin. 

had  been  the  cause  of  our  failures. — All  next 
day  (Monday)  we  lay  off  Siphano,  amusing  our- 
selves on  shore  with  fowling-pieces  and  navy 
revolvers.  I  need  not  say  we  killed  nothing ; 
and  luckily  we  did  not  wound  any  of  ourselves. 
A  guardiano  accompanied  us,  his  functions  being 
limited  to  preventing  actual  contact  with  the 
natives,  for  they  might  come  as  near  and  talk 
as  much  as  they  pleased.  These  isles  of  Greece 
are  sad,  interesting  places.  They  are  not  really 
barren  all  over,  but  they  are  quite  destitute  of 
verdure ;  and  tufts  of  thyme,  wild  mastic  or 
mint,  though  they  sound  well,  are  not  nearly 
so  pretty  as  grass.  Many  little  churches,  glit- 
tering white,  dot  the  islands ;  most  of  them,  I 
believe,  abandoned  during  the  whole  year 
with  the  exception  of  one  day  sacred  to  their 
patron  saint.  The  villages  are  mean,  but  the 
inhabitants  do  not  look  wretched  and  the  men 
are  good  sailors.  There  is  something  in  this 
Greek  race  yet ;  they  will  become  a  powerful 
Levantine  nation  in  the  course  of  time. — What 
a  lovely  moonlight  evening  that  was !  the  bar- 
ren  island  cutting  the  clear  sky  with  fantastic 
outline,  marble  cliffs  on  either  hand  fairly 


A  Pull  at  the  Oars.  173 

gleaming  over  the  calm  sea.  Next  day,  the 
wind  still  continuing,  I  proposed  a  boating  ex- 
cursion and  decoyed  A ,  L ,  and  S 

into  accompanying  me.  We  took  the  little  gig, 
and  sailed  away  merrily  enough  round  a  point 
to  a  beautiful  white  bay,  flanked  with  two  glis- 
tening little  churches,  fronted  by  beautiful  dis- 
tant islands ;  when  suddenly,  to  my  horror,  I 
discovered  the  Elba  steaming  full  speed  out  from 
the  island.  Of  course  we  steered  after  her; 
but  the  wind  that  instant  ceased,  and  we  were 
left  in  a  dead  calm.  There  was  nothing  for  it 
but  to  unship  the  mast,  get  out  the  oars  and 
pull.  The  ship  was  nearly  certain  to  stop  at 
the  buoy ;  and  I  wanted  to  learn  how  to  take  an 
oar,  so  here  was  a  chance  with  a  vengeance ! 

L steered,  and  we  three  pulled — a  broiling 

pull  it  was  about  half  way  across  to  Palikandro 
— still  we  did  come  in,  pulling  an  uncommon 
good  stroke,  and  I  had  learned  to  hang  on  my 

oar.     L had  pressed  me  to  let  him  take 

my  place  ;  but  though  I  was  very  tired  at  the 
end  of  the  first  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  then 
every  successive  half  hour,  I  would  not  give  in. 
I  nearly  paid  dear  for  my  obstinacy,  however ; 


1 74     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

for  in  the  evening  I  had  alternate  fits  of  shiver- 
ing and  burning.' 

III. 

The  next  extracts,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  the 
last,  are  from  Fleeming's  letters  of  1860,  when 
he  was  back  at  Bona  and  Spartivento  and  for 
the  first  time  at  the  head  of  an  expedition. 
Unhappily  these  letters  are  not  only  the  last, 
but  the  series  is  quite  imperfect ;  and  this  is 
the  more  to  be  lamented  as  he  had  now  begun 
to  use  a  pen  more  skilfully,  and  in  the  following 
notes  there  is  at  times  a  touch  of  real  distinc- 
tion in  the  manner. 

'  Cagliari :  October  5,  1860. 

'  All  Tuesday  I  spent  examining  what  was  on 
board  the  Elba,  and  trying  to  start  the  repairs 
of  the  Spartivento  land  line,  which  has  been 
entirely  neglected,  and  no  wonder,  for  no  one 
has  been  paid  for  three  months,  no,  not  even 
the  poor  guards  who  have  to  keep  themselves, 
their  horses  and  their  families,  on  their  pay. 
Wednesday  morning,  I  started  for  Spartivento 
and  got  there  in  time  to  try  a  good  many  ex- 
periments. Spartivento  looks  more  wild  and 


Spartivento  Again.  1 75 

savage  than  ever,  but  is  not  without  a  strange 
deadly  beauty :  the  hills  covered  with  bushes  of 
a  metallic  green  with  coppery  patches  of  soil  in 
between ;  the  valleys  filled  with  dry  salt  mud 
and  a  little  stagnant  water;  where  that  very 
morning  the  deer  had  drunk,  where  herons,  cur- 
lews, and  other  fowl  abound,  and  where,  alas ! 
malaria  is  breeding  with  this  rain.  (No  fear  for 
those  who  do  not  sleep  on  shore.)  A  little  iron 
hut  had  been  placed  there  since  1858;  but  the 
windows  had  been  carried  off,  the  door  broken 
down,  the  roof  pierced  all  over.  In  it,  we  sat 
to  make  experiments ;  and  how  it  recalled 
Birkenhead !  There  was  Thomson,  there  was 
my  testing  board,  the  strings  of  gutta-percha ; 

Harry  P even,  battering  with  the  batteries  ; 

but  where  was  my  darling  Annie?.  Whilst  I 
sat  feet  in  sand,  with  Harry  alone  inside  the  hut 
— mats,  coats,  and  wood  to  darken  the  window 
— the  others  visited  the  murderous  old  friar, 
who  is  of  the  order  of  Scaloppi,  and  for  whom  I 
brought  a  letter  from  his  superior,  ordering  him 
to  pay  us  attention ;  but  he  was  away  from 
home,  gone  to  Cagliari  in  a  boat  with  the  pro- 
duce of  the  farm  belonging  to  his  convent. 


i  76     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

Then  they  visited  the  tower  of  Chia,  but  could 
not  get  in  because  the  door  is  thirty  feet  off  the 
ground  ;  so  they  came  back  and  pitched  a  mag- 
nificent tent  which  I  brought  from  the  Bahiana 
a  long  time  ago — and  where  they  will  live  (if  I 
mistake  not)  in  preference  to  the  friar's,  or  the 

owl-  and  bat-haunted  tower.     MM.  T and 

S will  be  left  there  :  T ,  an  intelligent, 

hard-working  Frenchman,  with  whom  I  am  well 
pleased ;  he  can  speak  English  and  Italian  well, 

and  has  been  two  years  at  Genoa.     S is  a 

French  German  with  a  face  like  an  ancient  Gaul, 
who  has  been  sergeant-major  in  the  French  line 
and  who  is,  I  see,  a  great,  big,  muscular  faineant. 
We  left  the  tent  pitched  and  some  stores  in 
charge  of  a  guide,  and  ran  back  to  Cagliari. 

'Certainly,  being  at  the  head  of  things  is 
pleasanter  than  being  subordinate.  We  all 
agree  very  well ;  and  I  have  made  the  testing 
office  into  a  kind  of  private  room  where  I  can 
come  and  write  to  you  undisturbed,  surrounded 
by  my  dear,  bright  brass  things  which  all  of 
them  remind  me  of  our  nights  at  Birkenhead. 
Then  I  can  work  here,  too,  and  try  lots  of  ex- 
periments ;  you  know  how  I  like  that !  and 


At  Cagliari.  177 

now  and  then  I  read — Shakespeare  principally. 
Thank  you  so  much  for  making  me  bring  him : 
I  think  I  must  get  a  pocket  edition  of  Hamlet 
and  Henry  the  Fifth,  so  as  never  to  be  without 
them. 

1  Cagliari :  October  7. 

4  [The  town  was  full  ?]  .  .  .  of  red-shirted 
English  Garibaldini.  A  very  fine  looking  set 
of  fellows  they  are,  too :  the  officers  rather 
raffish,  but  with  medals  Crimean  and  Indian  ; 
the  men  a  very  sturdy  set,  with  many  lads  of 
good  birth  I  should  say.  They  still  wait  their 
consort  the  Emperor  and  will,  I  fear,  be  too  late 
to  do  anything.  I  meant  to  have  called  on 
them,  but  they  are  all  gone  into  barracks  some 
way  from  the  town,  and  I  have  been  much  too 
busy  to  go  far. 

'  The  view  from  the  ramparts  was  very  strange 
and  beautiful.  Cagliari  rises  on  a  very  steep 
rock,  at  the  mouth  of  a  wide  plain  circled  by 
large  hills  and  three-quarters  filled  with  lagoons ; 
it  looks,  therefore,  like  an  old  island  citadel. 
Large  heaps  of  salt  mark  the  border  between 
the  sea  and  the  lagoons ;  thousands  of  flamingoes 
whiten  the  centre  of  the  huge  shallow  marsh ; 


i/8     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

hawks  hover  and  scream  among  the  trees  under 
the  high  mouldering  battlements. — A  little  lower 
down,  the  band  played.  Men  and  ladies  bowed 
and  pranced,  the  costumes  posed,  church  bells 
tinkled,  processions  processed,  the  sun  set  be- 
hind thick  clouds  capping  the  hills;  I  pondered 
on  you  and  enjoyed  it  all. 

'Decidedly  I  prefer  being  master  to  being 
man:  boats  at  all  hours,  stewards  flying  for 
marmalade,  captain  enquiring  when  ship  is  to 
sail,  clerks  to  copy  my  writing,  the  boat  to  steer 
when  we  go  out — I  have  run  her  nose  on  several 
times ;  decidedly,  I  begin  to  feel  quite  a  little 
king.  Confound  the  cable,  though !  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  repair  it. 

4  Bona :  October  14. 

'  We  left  Cagliari  at  4.30  on  the  Qth  and  soon 
got  to  Spartivento.  I  repeated  some  of  my  ex- 
periments, but  found  Thomson,  who  was  to 
have  been  my  grand  stand-by,  would  not  work 
on  that  day  in  the  wretched  little  hut.  Even  if 
the  windows  and  door  had  been  put  in,  the  wind 
which  was  very  high  made  the  lamp  flicker  about 
and  blew  it  out ;  so  I  sent  on  board  and  got  old 
sails,  and  fairly  wrapped  the  hut  up  in  them ;  and 


The  Camp  at  Spartivento.        179 

then  we  were  as  snug  as  could  be,  and  I  left  the 
hut  in  glorious  condition  with  a  nice  little  stove 
in  it.  The  tent  which  should  have  been  forth- 
coming  from  the  curb's  for  the  guards,  had  gone 
to  Cagliari ;  but  I  found  another,  [a]  green, 
Turkish  tent,  in  the  Elba  and  soon  had  him  up. 
The  square  tent  left  on  the  last  occasion  was 
standing  all  right  and  tight  in  spite  of  wind  and 
rain.  We  landed  provisions,  two  beds,  plates, 
knives,  forks,  candles,  cooking  utensils,  and  were 
ready  for  a  start  at  6  P.M. ;  but  the  wind  mean- 
while had  come  on  to  blow  at  such  a  rate  that 

I  thought  better  of  it,  and  we  stopped.     T 

and  S slept  ashore,  however,  to  see  how  they 

liked  it ;  at  least  they  tried  to  sleep,  for  S 

the  ancient  sergeant-major  had  a  toothache,  and 

T thought  the  tent  was  coming  down  every 

minute.  Next  morning  they  could  only  com- 
plain of  sand  and  a  leaky  coffee-pot,  so  I  leave 
them  with  a  good  conscience.  The  little  en- 
campment looked  quite  picturesque :  the  green 
round  tent,  the  square  white  tent  and  the  hut  all 
wrapped  up  in  sails,  on  a  sand  hill,  looking  on 
the  sea  and  masking  those  confounded  marshes 
at  the  back.  One  would  have  thought  the  Cag- 


1 80     Memoir  of  Fleeming.  Jenkin. 

liaritans  were  in  a  conspiracy  to  frighten  the 
two  poor  fellows,  who  (I  believe)  will  be  safe 
enough  if  they  do  not  go  into  the  marshes  after 

nightfall.     S brought  a  little  dog  to  amuse 

them,  such  a  jolly,  ugly  little  cur  without  a  tail, 
but  full  of  fun  ;  he  will  be  better  than  quinine. 

'  The  wind  drove  a  barque,  which  had  an- 
chored near  us  for  shelter,  out  to  sea.  We 
started,  however,  at  2  P.M.,  and  had  a  quick  pas- 
sage but  a  very  rough  one,  getting  to  Bona  by 
daylight  [on  the  nth].  Such  a  place  as  this  is 
for  getting  anything  done !  The  health  boat 

went  away  from  us  at  7.30  with  W on  board  ; 

and  we  heard  nothing  of  them  till  9.30,  when 

W came  back  with  two  fat  Frenchmen  who 

are  to  look  on  on  the  part  of  the  Government. 
They  are  exactly  alike  :  only  one  has  four  bands 
and  the  other  three  round  his  cap,  and  so  I 
know  them.  Then  I  sent  a  boat  round  to  Fort 
Genois  [Fort  Geneva  of  1858],  where  the  cable 
is  landed,  with  all  sorts  of  things  and  directions, 
whilst  I  went  ashore  to  see  about  coals  and  a 
room  at  the  fort.  We  hunted  people  in  the 
little  square  in  their  shops  and  offices,  but  only 
found  them  in  cafes.  One  amiable  gentleman 


Waiting  for  Coals.  181 

wasn't  up  at  9.30,  was  out  at  10,  and  as  soon  as 
he  came  back  the  servant  said  he  would  go  to 
bed  and  not  get  up  till  3  :  he  came,  however,  to 
find  us  at  a  cafe",  and  said  that,  on  the  contrary, 
two  days  in  the  week  he  did  not  do  so !  Then 
my  two  fat  friends  must  have  their  breakfast 
after  their  "  something "  at  a  cafe"  ;  and  all  the 
shops  shut  from  10  to  2  ;  and  the  post  does  not 
open  till  12  ;  and  there  was  a  road  to  Fort 
Genois,  only  a  bridge  had  been  carried  away,  &c. 
At  last  I  got  off,  and  we  rowed  round  to  Fort 
Genois,  where  my  men  had  put  up  a  capital 
gipsy  tent  with  sails,  and  there  was  my  big 
board  and  Thomson's  number  5  in  great  glory. 
I  soon  came  to  the  conclusion  there  was  a 
break.  Two  of  my  faithful  Cagliaritans  slept 
all  night  in  the  little  tent,  to  guard  it  and  my 
precious  instruments  ;  and  the  sea,  which  was 
rather  rough,  silenced  my  Frenchmen. 

*  Next  day  I  went  on  with  my  experiments, 
whilst  a  boat  grappled  for  the  cable  a  little  way 
from  shore  and  buoyed  it  where  the  Elba  could 
get  hold.  I  brought  all  back  to  the  Elba,  tried 
my  machinery  and  was  all  ready  for  a  start  next 
morning.  But  the  wretched  coal  had  not  come 


1 82     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

yet ;  Government  permission  from  Algiers  to  be 
got ;  lighters,  men,  baskets,  and  I  know  not  what 
forms  to  be  got  or  got  through — and  everybody 
asleep !  Coals  or  no  coals,  I  was  determined  to 
start  next  morning;  and  start  we  did  at  four  in 
the  morning,  picked  up  the  buoy  with  our  deck 
engine,  popped  the  cable  across  a  boat,  tested 
the  wires  to  make  sure  the  fault  was  not  behind 
us,  and  started  picking  up  at  11.  Everything 
worked  admirably,  and  about  2  P.M.,  in  came  the 
fault.  There  is  no  doubt  the  cable  was  broken 
by  coral  fishers ;  twice  they  have  had  it  up  to 
their  own  knowledge. 

'  Many  men  have  been  ashore  to-day  and 
have  come  back  tipsy,  and  the  whole  ship  is  in 
3  state  of  quarrel  from  top  to  bottom,  and  they 
will  gossip  just  within  my  hearing.  And  we 
have  had,  moreover,  three  French  gentlemen  and 
a  French  lady  to  dinner,  and  I  had  to  act  host 
and  try  to  manage  the  mixtures  to  their  taste. 
The  good-natured  little  Frenchwoman  was  most 
amusing ;  when  I  asked  her  if  she  would  have 
some  apple  tart — " Mon  Dieu"  with  heroic  res- 
ignation, "j'e  veux  bien ";  or  a  little  plombod- 
ding — "  Mais  ce  que  vous  voudrez,  Monsieur  !  " 


An  Eventful  Day.  183 

'  S.S.  Elba,  somewhere  not  far  from  Bona  :  Oct.  19. 
'Yesterday  [after  three  previous  days  of  use- 
less grappling]  was  destined  to  be  very  eventful. 
We  began  dredging  at  daybreak  and  hooked  at 
once  every  time  in  rocks ;  but  by  capital  luck, 
just  as  we  were  deciding  it  was  no  use  to  con- 
tinue in  that  place,  we  hooked  the  cable :  up 
it  came,  was  tested,  and  lo !  another  complete 
break,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off.  I  was  amazed  at 
my  own  tranquillity  under  these  disappoint- 
ments, but  I  was  not  really  half  so  fussy  as 
about  getting  a  cab.  Well,  there  was  nothing 
for  it  but  grappling  again,  and,  as  you  may  im- 
agine, we  were  getting  about  six  miles  from 
shore.  But  the  water  did  not  deepen  rapidly ; 
we  seemed  to  be  on  the  crest  of  a  kind  of  sub- 
marine mountain  in  prolongation  of  Cape  de 
Gonde,  and  pretty  havoc  we  must  have  made 
with  the  crags.  What  rocks  we  did  hook !  No 
sooner  was  the  grapnel  down  than  the  ship  was 
anchored  ;  and  then  came  such  a  business  :  ship's 
engines  going,  deck  engine  thundering,  belt 
slipping,  fear  of  breaking  ropes :  actually  break- 
ing grapnels.  It  was  always  an  hour  or  more 
before  we  could  get  the  grapnel  down  again. 


184    Memoir  of  F teeming  Jen  kin. 

At  last  we  had  to  give  up  the  place,  though  we 
knew  we  were  close  to  the  cable,  and  go  further 
to  sea  in  much  deeper  water  ;  to  my  great  fear, 
as  I  knew  the  cable  was  much  eaten  away  and 
would  stand  but  little  strain.  Well,  we  hooked 
the  cable  first  dredge  this  time,  and  pulled  it 
slowly  and  gently  to  the  top,  with  much  trepi- 
dation. Was  it  the  cable  ?  was  there  any  weight 
on?  it  was  evidently  too  small.  Imagine  my 
dismay  when  the  cable  did  come  up,  but  hang- 
ing loosely,  thus 


instead  of  taut,  thus 


showing  certain  signs  of  a  break  close  by.  For 
a  moment  I  felt  provoked,  as  I  thought,  "  Here 
we  are  in  deep  water,  and  the  cable  will  not 
stand  lifting!"  I  tested  at  once,  and  by  the 
very  first  wire  found  it  had  broken  towards 


Cable  Fishing.  185 

shore  and  was  good  towards  sea.  This  was  of 
course  very  pleasant ;  but  from  that  time  to 
this,  though  the  wires  test  very  well,  not  a  sig- 
nal has  come  from  Spartivento.  I  got  the  cable 
into  a  boat,  and  a  gutta-percha  line  from  the 
ship  to  the  boat,  and  we  signalled  away  at  a 
great  rate — but  no  signs  of  life.  The  tests,  how- 
ever, make  me  pretty  sure  one  wire  at  least  is 
good ;  so  I  determined  to  lay  down  cable  from 
where  we  were  to  the  shore,  and  go  to  Sparti- 
vento to  see  what  had  happened  there.  I  fear 
my  men  are  ill.  The  night  was  lovely,  perfect- 
ly calm ;  so  we  lay  close  to  the  boat  and  signals 
were  continually  sent,  but  with  no  result.  This 
morning  I  laid  the  cable  down  to  Fort  Genois 
in  style ;  and  now  we  are  picking  up  odds  and 
ends  of  cable  between  the  different  breaks,  and 
getting  our  buoys  on  board,  &c.  To-morrow  I 
expect  to  leave  for  Spartivento.' 


IV. 

And  now  I  am  quite  at  an  end  of  journal 
keeping ;  diaries  and  diary  letters  being  things 
of  youth  which  Fleeming  had  at  length  out- 


1 86     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

grown.  But  one  or  two  more  fragments  from 
his  correspondence  may  be  taken,  and  first  this 
brief  sketch  of  the  laying  of  the  Norderney  ca- 
ble ;  mainly  interesting  as  showing  under  what 
defects  of  strength  and  in  what  extremities  of 
pain,  this  cheerful  man  must  at  times  continue 
to  go  about  his  work. 

'  I  slept  on  board  2gth  September  having  ar- 
ranged everything  to  start  by  daybreak  from 
where  we  lay  in  the  roads:  but  at  daybreak  a 
heavy  mist  hung  over  us  so  that  nothing  of  land 
or  water  could  be  seen.  At  midday  it  lifted 
suddenly  and  away  we  went  with  perfect  weath- 
er, but  could  not  find  the  buoys  Forde  left,  that 
evening.  I  saw  the  captain  was  not  strong  in 
navigation,  and  took  matters  next  day  much 
more  into  my  own  hands  and  before  nine  o'clock 
found  the  buoys ;  (the  weather  had  been  so  fine 
we  had  anchored  in  the  open  sea  near  Texel). 
It  took  us  till  the  evening  to  reach  the  buoys, 
get  the  cable  on  board,  test  the  first  half,  speak 

to  Lowestoft,  make  the  splice,  and  start.    H 

had  not  finished  his  work  at  Norderney,  so  I 
was  alone  on  board  for  Reuter.  Moreover  the 
buoys  to  guide  us  in  our  course  were  not  placed, 


The  Norderney  Cable.  187 

and  the  captain  had  very  vague  ideas  about  keep- 
ing his  course ;  so  I  had  to  do  a  good  deal,  and 
only  lay  down  as  I  was  for  two  hours  in  the  night. 
I  managed  to  run  the  course  perfectly.  Every- 
thing went  well,  and  we  found  Norderney  just 
where  we  wanted  it  next  afternoon,  and  if  the 
shore  end  had  been  laid,  could  have  finished 
there  and  then,  October  1st.  But  when  we  got 
to  Norderney,  we  found  the  Caroline  with  shore 
end  lying  apparently  aground,  and  could  not  un- 
derstand her  signals  ;  so  we  had  to  anchor  sud- 
denly and  I  went  off  in  a  small  boat  with  the 
captain  to  the  Caroline.  It  was  cold  by  this 
time,  and  my  arm  was  rather  stiff  and  I  was 
tired  ;  I  hauled  myself  up  on  board  the  Caroline 

by  a  rope  and  found  H and  two  men  on 

board.  All  the  rest  were  trying  to  get  the  shore 
end  on  shore,  but  had  failed  and  apparently  had 
stuck  on  shore,  and  the  waves  were  getting  up. 
We  had  anchored  in  the  right  place  and  next 
morning  we  hoped  the  shore  end  would  be  laid, 
so  we  had  only  to  go  back.  It  was  of  course 
still  colder  and  quite  night.  I  went  to  bed  and 
hoped  to  sleep,  but,  alas,  the  rheumatism  got 
into  the  joints  and  caused  me  terrible  pain  so 


1 88     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jen  kin. 

that  I  could  not  sleep.  I  bore  it  as  long  as  I 
could  in  order  to  disturb  no  one,  for  all  were 
tired ;  but  at  last  I  could  bear  it  no  longer  and 
managed  to  wake  the  steward  and  got  a  mustard 
poultice  which  took  the  pain  from  the  shoulder; 
but  then  the  elbow  got  very  bad,  and  I  had  to 
call  the  second  steward  and  get  a  second  poul- 
tice, and  then  it  was  daylight,  and  I  felt  very  ill 
and  feverish.  The  sea  was  now  rather  rough — 
too  rough  rather  for  small  boats,  but  luckily  a 
sort  of  thing  called  a  scoot  came  out,  and  we 
got  on  board  her  with  some  trouble,  and  got  on 
shore  after  a  good  tossing  about  which  made  us 
all  sea-sick.  The  cable  sent  from  the  Caroline 
was  just  60  yards  too  short  and  did  not  reach 
the  shore,  so  although  the  Caroline  did  make 
the  splice  late  that  night,  we  could  neither  test 
nor  speak.  Reuter  was  at  Norderney,  and  I 
had  to  do  the  best  I  could,  which  was  not  much, 
and  went  to  bed  early ;  I  thought  I  should  never 
sleep  again,  but  in  sheer  desperation  got  up  in 
the  middle  of  the  night  and  gulped  a  lot  of  raw 
whiskey  and  slept  at  last.  But  not  long.  A 

Mr.    F washed    my   face   and   hands   and 

dressed  me  ;  and  we  hauled  the  cable  out  of  the 


The  '  Great  Eastern!  1 89 

sea,  and  got  it  joined  to  the  telegraph  station, 
and  on  October  3rd  telegraphed  to  Lowestoft 
first  and  then  to  London.  Miss  Clara  Volkman, 
a  niece  of  Mr.  Reuter's,  sent  the  first  message  to 
Mrs.  Reuter,  who  was  waiting  (Varley  used  Miss 
Clara's  hand  as  a  kind  of  key),  and  I  sent  one  of 
the  first  messages  to  Odden.  I  thought  a  mes- 
sage addressed  to  him  would  not  frighten  you, 
and  that  he  would  enjoy  a  message  through 
Papa's  cable.  I  hope  he  did.  They  were  all 
very  merry,  but  I  had  been  so  lowered  by  pain 
that  I  could  not  enjoy  myself  in  spite  of  the 


V. 

Of  the  1869  cruise  in  the  Great  Eastern,  I  give 
what  I  am  able ;  only  sorry  it  is  no  more,  for 
the  sake  of  the  ship  itself,  already  almost  a 
legend  even  to  the  generation  that  saw  it 
launched. 

'  June  17,  1869. — Here  are  the  names  of  our 
staff  in  whom  I  expect  you  to  be  interested,  as 
future  Great  Eastern  stories  may  be  full  of 
them:  Theophilus  Smith,  a  man  of  Latimer 
Clark's ;  Leslie  C.  Hill,  my  prizeman  at  Uni- 


1 90     Memoir  of  Fleemtng  Jenkin. 

versity  College ;  Lord  Sackville  Cecil ;  King, 
one  of  the  Thomsonian  Kings;  Laws,  goes  for 
Willoughby  Smith,  who  will  also  be  on  board ; 
Varley,  Clark,  and  Sir  James  Anderson  make 
up  the  sum  of  all  you  know  anything  of.  A 
Captain  Halpin  commands  the  big  ship.  There 
are  four  smaller  vessels.  The  Wm.  Cory,  which 
laid  the  Norderney  cable,  has  already  gone  to 
St.  Pierre  to  lay  the  shore  ends.  The  Hawk 
and  Chiltern  have  gone  to  Brest  to  lay  shore 
ends.  The  Hawk  and  Scanderia  go  with  us 
across  the  Atlantic  and  we  shall  at  St.  Pierre  be 
transhipped  into  one  or  the  other. 

lju?ie  1 8.  Somewhere  in  London. — The  shore 
end  is  laid,  as  you  may  have  seen,  and  we  are 
all  under  pressing  orders  to  march,  so  we  start 
from  London  to-night  at  5.10. 

'  June  20.  Off  Ushant. — I  am  getting  quite 
fond  of  the  big  ship.  Yesterday  morning  in  the 
quiet  sunlight,  she  turned  so  slowly  and  lazily 
in  the  great  harbour  at  Portland,  and  bye  and 
bye  slipped  out  past  the  long  pier  with  so  little 
stir,  that  I  could  hardly  believe  we  were  really 
off.  No  men  drunk,  no  women  crying,  no  sing- 
ing or  swearing,  no  confusion  or  bustle  on  deck 


The  '  Great  Eastern?  191 

— nobody  apparently  aware  that  they  had  any- 
thing to  do.  The  look  of  the  thing  was  that 
the  ship  had  been  spoken  to  civilly  and  had 
kindly  undertaken  to  do  everything  that  was 
necessary  without  any  further  interference.  I 
have  a  nice  cabin  with  plenty  of  room  for  my 
legs  in  my  berth  and  have  slept  two  nights  like 
a  top.  Then  we  have  the  ladies'  cabin  set  apart 
as  an  engineer's  office,  and  I  think  this  de- 
cidedly the  nicest  place  in  the  ship:  35  ft.  x 
20  ft.  broad — four  tables,  three  great  mirrors, 
plenty  of  air  and  no  heat  from  the  funnels 
which  spoil  the  great  dining-room.  I  saw  a 
whole  library  of  books  on  the  walls  when  here 
last,  and  this  made  me  less  anxious  to  provide 
light  literature  ;  but  alas,  to-day  I  find  that  they 
are  every  one  bibles  or  prayer-books.  Now  one 
cannot  read  many  hundred  bibles.  .  .  .  As  for 
the  motion  of  the  ship  it  is  not  very  much, 
but  'twill  suffice.  Thomson  shook  hands  and 
wished  me  well.  I  do  like  Thomson.  .  .  .  Tell 
Austin  that  the  Great  Eastern  has  six  masts 
and  four  funnels.  When  I  get  back  I  will 
make  a  little  model  of  her  for  all  the  chicks 
and  pay  out  cotton  reels.  .  .  .  Here  we  are  at 


192     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

4.20  at  Brest.     We  leave  probably  to-morrow 
morning. 

'  July  12.  Great  Eastern. — Here  as  I  write 
we  run  our  last  course  for  the  buoy  at  the  St. 
Pierre  shore  end.  It  blows  and  lightens,  and 
our  good  ship  rolls,  and  buoys  are  hard  to  find ; 
but  we  must  soon  now  finish  our  work,  and 
then  this  letter  will  start  for  home.  .  .  .  Yes- 
terday we  were  mournfully  groping  our  way 
through  the  wet  grey  fog,  not  at  all  sure  where 
we  were,  with  one  consort  lost  and  the  other 
faintly  answering  the  roar  of  our  great  whistle 
through  the  mist.  As  to  the  ship  which  was  to 
meet  us,  and  pioneer  us  up  the  deep  channel,  we 
did  not  know  if  we  should  come  within  twenty 
miles  of  her ;  when  suddenly  up  went  the  fog, 
out  came  the  sun,  and  there,  straight  ahead,  was 
the  Wm.  Cory,  our  pioneer,  and  a  little  dancing 
boat,  the  Gulnare,  sending  signals  of  welcome 
with  many-coloured  flags.  Since  then  we  have 
been  steaming  in  a  grand  procession  ;  but  now 
at  2  A.M.  the  fog  has  fallen,  and  the  great  roar- 
ing  whistle  calls  up  the  distant  answering  notes 
all  around  us.  Shall  we,  or  shall  we  not  find 
the  buoy  ? 


The  Brazilian   Cable.  193 

*July  13. — All  yesterday  we  lay  in  the  damp 
dripping  fog,  with  whistles  all  round  and  guns 
firing  so  that  we  might  not  bump  up  against  one 
another.  This  little  delay  has  let  us  get  our 
reports  into  tolerable  order.  We  are  now  at  7 
o'clock  getting  the  cable  end  again,  with  the 
main  cable  buoy  close  to  us.' 

A  telegram  of  July  20 :  '  I  have  received  your 
four  welcome  letters.  The  Americans  are  charm- 
ing people.' 

VI. 

And  here  to  make  an  end  are  a  few  random 
bits  about  the  cruise  to  Pernambuco  : — 

'  Plymouth,  June  21,  1873. — I  have  been  down 
to  the  sea-shore  and  smelt  the  salt  sea  and  like 
it ;  and  I  have  seen  the  Hooper  pointing  her 
great  bow  sea-ward,  while  light  smoke  rises 
from  her  funnels  telling  that  the  fires  are  being 
lighted ;  and  sorry  as  I  am  to  be  without  you, 
something  inside  me  answers  to  the  call  to  be 
off  and  doing. 

'  Lalla  Rookh.  Plymouth,  June  22. — We  have 
been  a  little  cruise  in  the  yacht  over  to  the 
Eddystone  lighthouse,  and  my  sea-legs  seem 


1 94     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

very  well  on.  Strange  how  alike  all  these  starts 
are — first  on  shore,  steaming  hot  days  with  a 
smell  of  bone-dust  and  tar  and  salt'water ;  then 
the  little  puffing,  panting  steam-launch  that 
bustles  out  across  a  port  with  green  woody  sides, 
little  yachts  sliding  about,  men-of-war  training- 
ships,  and  then  a  great  big  black  hulk  of  a  thing 
with  a  mass  of  smaller  vessels  sticking  to  it  like 
parasites ;  and  that  is  one's  home  being  coaled. 
Then  comes  the  Champagne  lunch  where  every- 
one says  all  that  is  polite  to  everyone  else,  and 
then  the  uncertainty  when  to  start.  So  far  as 
we  know  now,  we  are  to  start  to-morrow  morn- 
ing at  daybreak ;  letters  that  come  later  are  to 
be  sent  to  Pernambuco  by  first  mail.  .  .  .  My 
father  has  sent  me  the  heartiest  sort  of  Jack 
Tar's  cheer. 

'  S.  S.  Hooper.  Off  Funchal,  June  29. — Here 
we  are  off  Madeira  at  seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Thomson  has  been  sounding  with  his 
special  toy  ever  since  half-past  three  (1087 
fathoms  of  water).  I  have  been  watching  the 
day  break,  and  long  jagged  islands  start  into 
being  out  of  the  dull  night.  We  are  still  some 
miles  from  land ;  but  the  sea  is  calmer  than 


The  Cook  and  the  Goat.         195 

Loch  Eil  often  was,  and  the  big  Hooper  rests 
very  contentedly  after  a  pleasant  voyage  and 
favourable  breezes.  I  have  not  been  able  to  do 
any  real  work  except  the  testing  [of  the  cable], 
for  though  not  sea-sick,  I  get  a  little  giddy  when 
I  try  to  think  on  board.  .  .  .  The  ducks  have 
just  had  their  daily  souse  and  are  quacking  and 
gabbling  in  a  mighty  way  outside  the  door  of 
the  captain's  deck  cabin  where  I  write.  The 
cocks  are  crowing,  and  new-laid  eggs  are  said  to 
be  found  in  the  coops.  Four  mild  oxen  have 
been  untethered  and  allowed  to  walk  along  the 
broad  iron  decks — a  whole  drove  of  sheep  seem 
quite  content  while  licking  big  lumps  of  bay 
salt.  Two  exceedingly  impertinent  goats  lead 
the  cook  a  perfect  life  of  misery.  They  steal 
round  the  galley  and  will  nibble  the  carrots  or 
turnips  if  his  back  is  turned  for  one  minute ; 
and  then  he  throws  something  at  them  and 
misses  them  ;  and  they  scuttle  off  laughing  im- 
pudently, and  flick  one  ear  at  him  from  a  safe 
distance.  This  is  the  most  impudent  gesture  I 
ever  saw.  Winking  is  nothing  to  it.  The  ear 
normally  hangs  down  behind ;  the  goat  turns 
sideways  to  her  enemy — by  a  little  knowing 


1 96     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

cock  of  the  head  flicks  one  ear  over  one  eye, 
and  squints  from  behind  it  for  half  a  minute — 
tosses  her  head  back,  skips  a  pace  or  two 
further  off,  and  repeats  the  manoeuvre.  The 
cook  is  very  fat  and  cannot  run  after  that  goat 
much. 

' Pernambuco,  Aug.  I. — We  landed  here  yes- 
terday, all  well  and  cable  sound,  after  a  good 
passage.  .  .  .  I  am  on  familiar  terms  with  cocoa- 
nuts,  mangoes,  and  bread-fruit  trees,  but  I  think 
I  like  the  negresses  best  of  anything  I  have 
seen.  In  turbans  and  loose  sea-green  robes, 
with  beautiful  black-brown  complexions  and  a 
stately  carriage,  they  really  are  a  satisfaction  to 
my  eye.  The  weather  has  been  windy  and 
rainy ;  the  Hooper  has  to  lie  about  a  mile  from 
the  town,  in  an  open  roadstead,  with  the  whole 
swell  of  the  Atlantic  driving  straight  on  shore. 
The  little  steam  launch  gives  all  who  go  in  her  a 
good  ducking,  as  she  bobs  about  on  the  big 
rollers ;  and  my  old  gymnastic  practice  stands 
me  in  good  stead  on  boarding  and  leaving  her. 
We  clamber  down  a  rope  ladder  hanging  from 
the  high  stern,  and  then  taking  a  rope  in  one 
hand,  swing  into  the  launch  at  the  moment 


The  President  of  Pernambuco.     197 

when  she  can  contrive  to  steam  up  under  us — 
bobbing  about  like  an  apple  thrown  into  a  tub 
all  the  while.  The  President  of  the  province 
and  his  suite  tried  to  come  off  to  a  State  lunch- 
eon on  board  on  Sunday ;  but  the  launch  be- 
ing rather  heavily  laden,  behaved  worse  than 
usual,  and  some  green  seas  stove  in  the  Presi- 
dent's hat  and  made  him  wetter  than  he  had 
probably  ever  been  in  his  life ;  so  after  one  or 
two  rollers,  he  turned  back ;  and  indeed  he  was 
wise  to  do  so,  for  I  don't  see  how  he  could  have 
got  on  board.  .  .  .  Being  fully  convinced  that 
the  world  will  not  continue  to  go  round  unless 
I  pay  it  personal  attention,  I  must  run  away  to 
my  work.' 


CHAPTER  VI. 

1869—1885. 

Edinburgh— Colleagues— Farrago  Vit<z—\.  The  Family  Circle— 
Fleeming  and  his  Sons— Highland  Life— The  Cruise  of  the 
Steam  Launch — Summer  in  Styria — Rustic  Manners — II.  The 
Drama — Private  Theatricals — III.  Sanitary  Associations — The 
Phonograph — IV.  Fleeming's  Acquaintance  with  a  Student — His 
late  Maturity  of  Mind — Religion  and  Morality — His  Love  of 
Heroism— Taste  in  Literature— V.  His  Talk — His  late  Popularity 
— Letter  from  M.  Trelat. 

'IPHE  remaining  external  incidents  of  Fleem- 
•••  ing's  life,  pleasures,  honours,  fresh  interests, 
new  friends,  are  not  such  as  will  bear  to  be  told 
at  any  length  or  in  the  temporal  order.  And 
it  is  now  time  to  lay  narration  by,  and  to  look 
at  the  man  he  was  and  the  life  he  lived,  more 
largely. 

Edinburgh,  which  was  thenceforth  to  be  his 
home,  is  a  metropolitan  small  town ;  where  col- 
lege professors  and  the  lawyers  of  the  Parliament 
House  give  the  tone,  and  persons  of  leisure,  at- 
tracted by  educational  advantages,  make  up 
much  of  the  bulk  of  society.  Not,  therefore,  an 

unlettered  place,  yet  not  pedantic,  Edinburgh 
(198) 


His  Colleagues.  199 

will  compare  favourably  with  much  larger  cities. 
A  hard  and  disputatious  element  has  been  com- 
mented on  by  strangers:  it  would  not  touch 
Fleeming,  who  was  himself  regarded,  even  in 
this  metropolis  of  disputation,  as  a  thorny  table- 
mate.  To  golf  unhappily  he  did  not  take,  and 
golf  is  a  cardinal  virtue  in  the  city  of  the  winds. 
Nor  did  he  become  an  archer  of  the  Queen's 
Body-Guard,  which  is  the  Chiltern  Hundreds 
of  the  distasted  golfer.  He  did  not  even  fre- 
quent the  Evening  Club,  where  his  colleague 
Tait  (in  my  day)  was  so  punctual  and  so  genial. 
So  that  in  some  ways  he  stood  outside  of  the 
lighter  and  kindlier  life  of  his  new  home.  I 
should  not  like  to  say  that  he  was  generally 
popular;  but  there  as  elsewhere,  those  who 
knew  him  well  enough  to  love  him,  loved  him 
well.  And  he,  upon  his  side,  liked  a  place 
where  a  dinner  party  was  not  of  necessity  un- 
intellectual,  and  where  men  stood  up  to  him  in 
argument. 

The  presence  of  his  old  classmate,  Tait,  was 
one  of  his  early  attractions  to  the  chair ;  and  now 
that  Fleeming  is  gone  again,  Tait  still  remains, 
ruling  and  really  teaching  his  great  classes. 


2OO     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

Sir  Robert  Christison  was  an  old  friend  of  his 
mother's ;  Sir  Alexander  Grant,  Kelland,  and 
Sellar,  were  new  acquaintances  and  highly 
valued ;  and  these  too,  all  but  the  last,  have 
been  taken  from  their  friends  and  labours. 
Death  has  been  busy  in  the  Senatus.  I  will 
speak  elsewhere  of  Fleeming's  demeanour  to 
his  students ;  and  it  will  be  enough  to  add  here 
that  his  relations  with  his  colleagues  in  general 
were  pleasant  to  himself. 

Edinburgh,  then,  with  its  society,  its  universi- 
ty work,  its  delightful  scenery,  and  its  skating 
in  the  winter,  was  thenceforth  his  base  of  opera- 
tions. But  he  shot  meanwhile  erratic  in  many 
directions :  twice  to  America,  as  we  have  seen, 
on  telegraph  voyages;  continually  to  London 
on  business  ;  often  to  Paris ;  year  after  year  to 
the  Highlands  to  shoot,  to  fish,  to  learn  reels 
and  Gaelic,  to  make  the  acquaintance  and  fall 
in  love  with  the  character  of  Highlanders  ;  and 
once  to  Styria,  to  hunt  chamois  and  dance  with 
peasant  maidens.  All  the  while,  he  was  pursuing 
the  course  of  his  electrical  studies,  making  fresh 
inventions,  taking  up  the  phonograph,  filled 
with  theories  of  graphic  representation;  read- 


Interests  and  Activities.  201 

ing,  writing,  publishing,  founding  sanitary  as- 
sociations, interested  in  technical  education, 
investigating  the  laws  of  metre,  drawing,  acting, 
directing  private  theatricals,  going  a  long  way 
to  see  an  actor — a  long  way  to  see  a  picture ;  in 
the  very  bubble  of  the  tideway  of  contemporary 
interests.  And  all  the  while  he  was  busied  about 
his  father  and  mother,  his  wife,  and  in  particulai 
his  sons  ;  anxiously  watching,  anxiously  guiding 
these,  and  plunging  with  his  whole  fund  of 
youthfulness  into  their  sports  and  interests. 
And  all  the  while  he  was  himself  maturing — 
not  in  character  or  body,  for  these  remained 
young — but  in  the  stocked  mind,  in  the  tolerant 
knowledge  of  life  and  man,  in  pious  acceptance 
of  the  universe.  Here  is  a  farrago  for  a  chap- 
ter :  here  is  a  world  of  interests  and  activities, 
human,  artistic,  social,  scientific,  at  each  of  which 
he  sprang  with  impetuous  pleasure,  on  each  of 
which  he  squandered  energy,  the  arrow  drawn 
to  the  head,  the  whole  intensity  of  his  spirit 
bent,  for  the  moment,  on  the  momentary  pur- 
pose. It  was  this  that  lent  such  unusual  in- 
terest to  his  society,  so  that  no  friend  of  his 
can  forget  that  figure  of  Fleeming  coming 


2O2     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

charged  with  some  new  discovery:  it  is  this 
that  makes  his  character  so  difficult  to  represent. 
Our  fathers,  upon  some  difficult  theme,  would 
invoke  the  Muse ;  I  can  but  appeal  to  the 
imagination  of  the  reader.  When  I  dwell 
upon  some  one  thing,  he  must  bear  in  mind  it 
was  only  one  of  a  score  ;  that  the  unweariable 
brain  was  teeming  at  the  very  time  with  other 
thoughts ;  that  the  good  heart  had  left  no  kind 
duty  forgotten. 

I. 

In  Edinburgh,  for  a  considerable  time,  Fleem- 
ing's  family,  to  three  generations,  was  united  : 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Austin  at  Hailes,  Captain  and 
Mrs.  Jenkin  in  the  suburb  of  Merchiston,  Fleem- 
ing  himself  in  the  city.  It  is  not  every  family 
that  could  risk  with  safety  such  close  interdo- 
rnestic  dealings ;  but  in  this  also  Fleeming  was 
particularly  favoured.  Even  the  two  extremes, 
Mr.  Austin  and  the  Captain,  drew  together.  It 
is  pleasant  to  find  that  each  of  the  old  gentle- 
men set  a  high  value  on  the  good  looks  of  the 
other,  doubtless  also  on  his  own  ;  and  a  fine 
picture  they  made  as  they  walked  the  green  ter« 


F teeming  and  his  Sons.          203 

race  at  Hailes,  conversing  by  the  hour.  What 
they  talked  of  is  still  a  mystery  to  those  who 
knew  them  ;  but  Mr.  Austin  always  declared 
that  on  these  occasions  he  learned  much.  To 
both  of  these  families  of  elders,  due  service  was 
paid  of  attention ;  to  both,  Fleeming's  easy 
circumstances  had  brought  joy ;  and  the  eyes 
of  all  were  on  the  grandchildren.  In  Fleem- 
ing's scheme  of  duties,  those  of  the  family  stood 
first ;  a  man  was  first  of  all  a  child,  nor  did  he 
cease  to  be  so,  but  only  took  on  added  obliga- 
tions, when  he  became  in  turn  a  father.  The 
care  of  his  parents  was  always  a  first  thought 
with  him,  and  their  gratification  his  delight. 
And  the  care  of  his  sons,  as  it  was  always  a 
grave  subject  of  study  with  him,  and  an  affair 
never  neglected,  so  it  brought  him  a  thousand 
satisfactions.  '  Hard  work  they  are,'  as  he  once 
wrote,  'but  what  fit  work!'  And  again:  '  O, 
it's  a  cold  house  where  a  dog  is  the  only  repre- 
sentative of  a  child  ! '  Not  that  dogs  were  de- 
spised ;  we  shall  drop  across  the  name  of  Jack, 
the  harum-scarum  Irish  terrier  ere  we  have 
done;  his  own  dog  Plato  went  up  with  him 
daily  to  his  lectures,  and  still  (like  other  friends) 


2O4     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jen  kin. 

feels  the  loss  and  looks  visibly  for  the  reappear- 
ance of  his  master ;  and  Martin,  the  cat,  Fleem- 
ing  has  himself  immortalised,  to  the  delight  of 
Mr.  Swinburne,  in  the  columns  of  the  Spectator. 
Indeed  there  was  nothing  in  which  men  take  in- 
terest, in  which  he  took  not  some ;  and  yet  al- 
ways most  in  the  strong  human  bonds,  ancient 
as  the  race  and  woven  of  delights  and  duties. 

He  was  even  an  anxious  father ;  perhaps  that 
is  the  part  where  optimism  is  hardest  tested. 
He  was  eager  for  his  sons ;  eager  for  their 
health,  whether  of  mind  or  body;  eager  for 
their  education ;  in  that,  I  should  have  thought, 
too  eager.  But  he  kept  a  pleasant  face  upon  all 
things,  believed  in  play,  loved  it  himself,  shared 
boyishly  in  theirs,  and  knew  how  to  put  a  face 
of  entertainment  upon  business  and  a  spirit  of 
education  into  entertainment.  If  he  was  to  test 
the  progress  of  the  three  boys,  this  advertise- 
ment would  appear  in  their  little  manuscript 
paper: — 'Notice:  The  Professor  of  Engineer- 
ing in  the  University  of  Edinburgh  intends  at 
the  close  of  the  scholastic  year  to  hold  examina- 
tions  in  the  following  subjects:  (i)  For  boys  in 
the  fourth  class  of  the  Academy  —  Geometry 


Fleeming  and  his  Sons.          205 

and  Algebra ;  (2)  For  boys  at  Mr.  Henderson's 
school — Dictation  and  Recitation  ;  (3)  For  boys 
taught  exclusively  by  their  mothers — Arithme- 
tic and  Reading,'  Prizes  were  given ;  but  what 
prize  would  be  so  conciliatory  as  this  boyish 
little  joke?  It  may  read  thin  here;  it  would 
smack  racily  in  the  playroom.  Whenever  his 
sons  '  started  a  new  fad  '  (as  one  of  them  writes 
to  me)  they  '  had  only  to  tell  him  about  it,  and 
he  was  at  once  interested  and  keen  to  help.' 
He  would  discourage  them  in  nothing  unless  it 
was  hopelessly  too  hard  for  them  ;  only,  if  there 
was  any  principle  of  science  involved,  they  must 
understand  the  principle ;  and  whatever  was  at- 
tempted, that  was  to  be  done  thoroughly.  If  it 
was  but  play,  if  it  was  but  a  puppetshow  they 
were  to  build,  he  set  them  the  example  of  being 
no  sluggard  in  play.  When  Frewen,  the  second 
son,  embarked  on  the  ambitious  design  to  make 
an  engine  for  a  toy  steamboat,  Fleeming  made 
him  begin  with  a  proper  drawing — doubtless  to 
the  disgust  of  the  young  engineer;  but  once 
that  foundation  laid,  helped  in  the  work  with 
unflagging  gusto,  'tinkering  away,'  for  hours, 
and  assisted  at  the  final  trial  'in  the  big  bath' 


206     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

with  no  less  excitement  than  the  boy.  '  He 
would  take  any  amount  of  trouble  to  help  us,' 
writes  my  correspondent.  '  We  never  felt  an 
affair  was  complete  till  we  had  called  him  to  see, 
and  he  would  come  at  any  time,  in  the  middle 
of  any  work.'  There  was  indeed  one  recognised 
playhour,  immediately  after  the  despatch  of  the 
day's  letters  ;  and  the  boys  were  to  be  seen  wait- 
ing on  the  stairs  until  the  mail  should  be  ready 
and  the  fun  could  begin.  But  at  no  other  time 
did  this  busy  man  suffer  his  work  to  interfere 
with  that  first  duty  to  his  children  ;  and  there  is 
a  pleasant  tale  of  the  inventive  Master  Frewen, 
engaged  at  the  time  upon  a  toy  crane,  bringing 
to  the  study  where  his  father  sat  at  work  a  half- 
wound  reel  that  formed  some  part  of  his  design, 
and  observing,  '  Papa,  you  might  finiss  windin' 
this  for  me  ;  I  am  so  very  busy  to-day.' 

I  put  together  here  a  few  brief  extracts  from 
Fleeming's  letters,  none  very  important  in  itself, 
but  all  together  building  up  a  pleasant  picture 
of  the  father  with  his  sons. 

'  Jan.  l$t/i,  1875. — Frewen  contemplates  sus- 
pending soap  bubbles  by  silk  threads  for  experi- 
mental purposes.  I  don't  think  he  will  manage 


Fleeming  and  his  Sons.  ^07 

that.  Bernard'  [the  youngest]  'volunteered  to 
blow  the  bubbles  with  enthusiasm.' 

'  Jan.  ijth. — I  am  learning  a  great  deal  of 
electrostatics  in  consequence  of  the  perpetual 
cross-examination  to  which  I  am  subjected.  I 
long  for  you  on  many  grounds,  but  one  is  that  I 
may  not  be  obliged  to  deliver  a  running  lecture 
on  abstract  points  of  science,  subject  to  cross- 
examination  by  two  acute  students.  Bernie  does 
not  cross-examine  much  ;  but  if  anyone  gets  dis- 
comfited, he  laughs  a  sort  of  little  silver-whistle 
giggle,  which  is  trying  to  the  unhappy  blun- 
derer.' 

'  May  gth. — Frewen  is  deep  in  parachutes.  I 
beg  him  not  to  drop  from  the  top  landing  in  one 
of  his  own  making.' 

'  June  6th,  1876. — Frewen's  crank  axle  is  a 
failure  just  at  present — but  he  bears  up.' 

1  June  I4//Z. — The  boys  enjoy  their  riding.  It 
gets  them  whole  funds  of  adventures.  One  of 
their  caps  falling  off  is  matter  for  delightful 
leminiscences ;  and  when  a  horse  breaks  his 
step,  the  occurrence  becomes  a  rear,  a  shy,  or  a 
plunge  as  they  talk  it  over.  Austin,  with  quiet 
confidence,  speaks  of  the  greater  pleasure  in  rid- 


208     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

ing  a  spirited  horse,  even  if  he  does  give  a  little 
trouble.  It  is  the  stolid  brute  that  he  dislikes. 
(N.B.  You  can  still  see  six  inches  between  him 
and  the  saddle  when  his  pony  trots.)  I  listen 
and  sympathise  and  throw  out  no  hint  that  their 
achievements  are  not  really  great.' 

'  June  \%th. — Bernard  is  much  impressed  by 
the  fact  that  I  can  be  useful  to  Frewen  about 
the  steamboat '  [which  the  latter  irrepressible 
inventor  was  making].  '  He  says  quite  with 
awe,  "  He  would  not  have  got  on  nearly  so  well 
if  you  had  not  helped  him."  ' 

'  June  27th. — I  do  not  see  what  I  could  do 
without  Austin.  He  talks  so  pleasantly  and  is 
so  truly  good  all  through.' 

'July  7th. — My  chief  difficulty  with  Austin 
is  to  get  him  measured  for  a  pair  of  trousers. 
Hitherto  I  have  failed,  but  I  keep  a  stout  heart 
and  mean  to  succeed.  Frewen  the  observer,  in 
describing  the  paces  of  two  horses,  says,  "  Polly 
takes  twenty-seven  steps  to  get  round  the  school. 
I  couldn't  count  Sophy,  but  she  takes  more  than 
a  hundred." ' 

'  Feb.  i%th,  1877.— We  all  feel  very  lonely  with- 
out you.  Frewen  had  to  come  up  and  sit  in  my 


Fleeming  and  his  Sons.  209 

room  for  company  last  night  and  I  actually  kissed 
him,  a  thing  that  has  not  occurred  for  years. 
Jack,  poor  fellow,  bears  it  as  well  as  he  can,  and 
has  taken  the  opportunity  of  having  a  fester  on 
his  foot,  so  he  is  lame  and  has  it  bathed,  and  this 
occupies  his  thoughts  a  good  deal/ 

*  Feb.  igth. — As  to  Mill,  Austin  has  not  got 
the  list  yet.  I  think  it  will  prejudice  him  very 
much  against  Mill — but  that  is  not  my  affair. 
Education  of  that  kind !  .  .  .  I  would  as  soon 
cram  my  boys  with  food  and  boast  of  the  pounds 
they  had  eaten,  as  cram  them  with  literature.' 

But  if  Fleeming  was  an  anxious  father,  he  did 
not  suffer  his  anxiety  to  prevent  the  boys  from 
any  manly  or  even  dangerous  pursuit.  What- 
ever it  might  occur  to  them  to  try,  he  would 
carefully  show  them  how  to  do  it,  explain  the 
risks,  and  then  either  share  the  danger  himself 
or,  if  that  were  not  possible,  stand  aside  and 
wait  the  event  with  that  unhappy  courage  of 
the  looker-on.  He  was  a  good  swimmer,  and 
taught  them  to  swim.  He  thoroughly  loved  all 
manly  exercises ;  and  during  their  holidays,  and 
principally  in  the  Highlands,  helped  and  en- 
couraged them  to  excel  in  as  many  as  possible 


2 1  o     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

to  shoot,  to  fish,  to  walk,  to  pull  an  oar,  to  hand, 
reef  and  steer,  and  to  run  a  steam  launch.  In 
all  of  these,  and  in  all  parts  of  Highland  life,  he 
shared  delightedly.  He  was  well  on  to  forty  when 
•he  took  once  more  to  shooting,  he  was  forty- 
three  when  he  killed  his  first  salmon,  but  no  boy 
could  have  more  single  -  mindedly  rejoiced  in 
these  pursuits.  His  growing  love  for  the  High- 
land character,  perhaps  also  a  sense  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  task,  led  him  to  take  up  at  forty-one 
the  study  of  Gaelic ;  in  which  he  made  some 
shadow  of  progress,  but  not  much :  the  fast- 
nesses of  that  elusive  speech  retaining  to  the 
last  their  independence.  At  the  house  of  his 
friend  Mrs.  Blackburn,  who  plays  the  part  of  a 
Highland  lady  as  to  the  manner  born,  he  learned 
the  delightful  custom  of  kitchen  dances,  which 
became  the  rule  at  his  own  house  and  brought 
him  into  yet  nearer  contact  with  his  neighbours. 
And  thus  at  forty-two,  he  began  to  learn  the 
reel :  a  study,  to  which  he  brought  his  usual 
.smiling  earnestness  ;  and  the  steps,  diagrammat- 
ically  represented  by  his  own  hand,  are  before 
me  as  I  write. 

It  was  in  1879  tnat  a  new  feature  was  added 


Cruise  of  the  Steam  Launch.     211 

to  the  Highland  life :  a  steam  launch,  called  the 
Purgle,  the  Styrian  corruption  of  Walpurga, 
after  a  friend  to  be  hereafter  mentioned.  '  The 
steam  launch  goes,'  Fleeming  wrote.  '  I  wish 
you  had  been  present  to  describe  two  scenes  of 
which  she  has  been  the  occasion  already :  one 
during  which  the  population  of  Ullapool,  to  a 
baby,  was  harnessed  to  her  hurrahing — and  the 
other  in  which  the  same  population  sat  with 
its  legs  over  a  little  pier,  watching  Frewen  and 
Bernie  getting  up  steam  for  the  first  time.' 
The  Purgle  was  got  with  educational  intent ; 
and  it  served  its  purpose  so  well,  and  the  boys 
knew  their  business  so  practically,  that  when 
the  summer  was  at  an  end,  Fleeming,  Mrs. 
Jenkin,  Frewen  the  engineer,  Bernard  the  stoker, 
and  Kenneth  Robertson  a  Highland  seaman,  set 
forth  in  her  to  make  the  passage  south.  The 
first  morning  they  got  from  Loch  Broom  into 
Gruinard  bay,  where  they  lunched  upon  an 
island ;  but  the  wind  blowing  up  in  the  after- 
noon, with  sheets  of  rain,  it  was  found  impossi- 
ble to  beat  to  sea ;  and  very  much  in  the  situa- 
tion of  castaways  upon  an  unknown  coast,  the 
party  landed  at  the  mouth  of  Gruinard  river. 


2 1 2     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

A  shooting  lodge  was  spied  among  the  trees ; 
there  Fleeming  went ;  and  though  the  master, 
Mr.  Murray,  was  from  home,  though  the  two 
Jenkin  boys  were  of  course  as  black  as  colliers, 
and  all  the  castaways  so  wetted  through  that, 
as  they  stood  in  the  passage,  pools  formed  about 
their  feet  and  ran  before  them  into  the  house, 
yet  Mrs.  Murray  kindly  entertained  them  for  the 
night.  On  the  morrow,  however,  visitors  were 
to  arrive ;  there  would  be  no  room  and,  in  so 
out-of-the-way  a  spot,  most  probably  no  food 
for  the  crew  of  the  Purgle ;  and  on  the  morrow 
about  noon,  with  the  bay  white  with  spindrift 
and  the  wind  so  strong  that  one  could  scarcely 
stand  against  it,  they  got  up  steam  and  skulked 
under  the  land  as  far  as  Sanda  Bay.  Here  they 
crept  into  a  seaside  cave,  and  cooked  some  food  ; 
but  the  weather  now  freshening  to  a  gale,  it 
was  plain  they  must  moor  the  launch  where  she 
was,  and  find  their  way  overland  to  some  place 
of  shelter.  Even  to  get  their  baggage  from  on 
board  was  no  light  business ;  for  the  dingy  was 
blown  so  far  to  leeward  every  trip,  that  they  must 
carry  her  back  by  hand  along  the  beach.  But 
this  once  managed,  and  a  cart  procured  in  the 


Cruise  of  the  Steam  Launch.     2 1 3 

neighbourhood,  they  were  able  to  spend  the 
night  in  a  pot-house  on  Ault  Bea.  Next  day, 
the  sea  was  unapproachable ;  but  the  next  they 
had  a  pleasant  passage  to  Poolewe,  hugging  the 
cliffs,  the  falling  swell  bursting  close  by  them 
in  the  gullies,  and  the  black  scarts  that  sat  like 
ornaments  on  the  top  of  every  stack  and  pin- 
nacle, looking  down  into  the  Purgle  as  she 
passed.  The  climate  of  Scotland  had  not  done 
with  them  yet :  for  three  days  they  lay  storm- 
stayed  in  Poolewe,  and  when  they  put  to  sea 
on  the  morning  of  the  fourth,  the  sailors  prayed 
them  for  God's  sake  not  to  attempt  the  passage. 
Their  setting  out  was  indeed  merely  tentative ; 
but  presently  they  had  gone  too  far  to  return, 
and  found  themselves  committed  to  double  Rhu 
Reay  with  a  foul  wind  and  a  cross  sea.  From 
half-past  eleven  in  the  morning  until  half-past 
five  at  night,  they  were  in  immediate  and  un- 
ceasing danger.  Upon  the  least  mishap,  the 
Purgle  must  either  have  been  swamped  by  the 
seas  or  bulged  upon  the  cliffs  of  that  rude 
headland.  Fleeming  and  Robertson  took  turns 
baling  and  steering;  Mrs.  Jenkin,  so  violent  was 
the  commotion  of  the  boat,  held  on  with  both 


214     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

hands;  Frewen,  by  Robertson's  direction,  ran 
the  engine,  slacking  and  pressing  her  to  meet 
the  seas;  and  Bernard,  only  twelve  years  old, 
deadly  sea-sick,  and  continually  thrown  against 
the  boiler,  so  that  he  was  found  next  day  to  be 
covered  with  burns,  yet  kept  an  even  fire.  It 
was  a  very  thankful  party  that  sat  down  that 
evening  to  meat  in  the  Hotel  at  Gairloch.  And 
perhaps,  although  the  thing  was  new  in  the 
family,  no  one  was  much  surprised  when  Fleem- 
ing  said  grace  over  that  meal.  Thenceforward 
he  continued  to  observe  the  form,  so  that  there 
was  kept  alive  in  his  house  a  grateful  memory 
of  peril  and  deliverance.  But  there  was  noth- 
ing of  the  muff  in  Fleeming;  he  thought  it  a 
good  thing  to  escape  death,  but  a  becoming  and 
a  healthful  thing  to  run  the  risk  of  it ;  and 
what  is  rarer,  that  which  he  thought  for  himself, 
he  thought  for  his  family  also.  In  spite  of  the 
terrors  of  Rhu  Reay,  the  cruise  was  persevered 
in  and  brought  to  an  end  under  happier  con- 
ditions. 

One  year,  instead  of  the  Highlands,  Alt 
Aussee,  in  the  Steiermark,  was  chosen  for  the 
holidays ;  and  the  place,  the  people,  and  the 


Slyrian  Peasants.  215 

life  delighted  Fleeming.  He  worked  hard  at 
German,  which  he  had  much  forgotten  since  he 
was  a  boy;  and  what  is  highly  characteristic, 
equally  hard  at  the  patois,  in  which  he  learned 
to  excel.  He  won  a  prize  at  a  Schiitzen-fest ; 
and  though  he  hunted  chamois  without  much 
success,  brought  down  more  interesting  game 
in  the  shape  of  the  Styrian  peasants,  and  in 
particular  of  his  gillie,  Joseph.  This  Joseph 
was  much  of  a  character ;  and  his  appreciations 
of  Fleeming  have  a  fine  note  of  their  own.  The 
bringing  up  of  the  boys  he  deigned  to  approve 
of :  'fast  so  gut  wie  ein  Bauer]  was  his  trenchant 
criticism.  The  attention  and  courtly  respect 
with  which  Fleeming  surrounded  his  wife,  was 
something  of  a  puzzle  to  the  philosophic  gillie ; 
he  announced  in  the  village  that  Mrs.  Jenkin — 
die  silberne  Frau,  as  the  folk  had  prettily  named 
her  from  some  silver  ornaments — was  a  ' geborene 
Grdfiri  who  had  married  beneath  her ;  and  when 
Fleeming  explained  what  he  called  the  English 
theory  (though  indeed  it  was  quite  his  own)  of 
married  relations,  Joseph,  admiring  but  uncon- 
vinced, avowed  it  was  'gar  schon!  Joseph's 
cousin,  Walpurga  Moser,  to  an  orchestra  of 


216     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

clarionet  and  zither,  taught  the  family  the  coun- 
try dances,  the  Steierisch  and  the  Landler,  and 
gained  their  hearts  during  the  lessons.  Her 
sister  Loys,  too,  who  was  up  ^t  the  Alp  with 
the  cattle,  came  down  to  church  on  Sundays, 
made  acquaintance  with  the  Jenkins,  and  must 
have  them  up  to  see  the  sunrise  from  her  house 
upon  the  Loser,  where  they  had  supper  and  all 
slept  in  the  loft  among  the  hay.  The  Mosers 
were  not  lost  sight  of ;  Walpurga  still  corresponds 
with  Mrs.  Jenkin,  and  it  was  a  late  pleasure  of 
Fleeming's  to  choose  and  despatch  a  wedding 
present  for  his  little  mountain  friend.  This 
visit  was  brought  to  an  end  by  a  ball  in  the 
big  inn  parlour;  the  refreshments  chosen,  the 
list  of  guests  drawn  up,  by  Joseph ;  the  best 
music  of  the  place  in  attendance;  and  hosts 
and  guests  in  their  best  clothes.  The  ball  was 
opened  by  Mrs.  Jenkin  dancing  Steierisch  with 
a  lordly  Bauer,  in  gray  and  silver  and  with  a 
plumed  hat ;  and  Fleeming  followed  with  Wal- 
purga Moser. 

There  ran  a  principle  through  all  these  holi- 
day pleasures.  In  Styria  as  in  the  Highlands, 
the  same  course  was  followed :  Fleeming  threw 


Rustic  Manners.  217 

himself  as  fully  as  he  could  into  the  life  and  oc- 
cupations of  the  native  people,  studying  every- 
where their  dances  and  their  language,  and  con- 
forming, always  with  pleasure,  to  their  rustic 
etiquette.  Just  as  the  ball  at  Alt  Aussee  was 
designed  for  the  taste  of  Joseph,  the  parting 
feast  at  Attadale  was  ordered  in  every  particular 
to  the  taste  of  Murdoch  the  Keeper.  Fleeming 
was  not  one  of  the  common,  so-called  gentle- 
men, who  take  the  tricks  of  their  own  coterie 
to  be  eternal  principles  of  taste.  He  was  aware, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  rustic  people  dwelling 
in  their  own  places,  follow  ancient  rules  with 
fastidious  precision,  and  are  easily  shocked  and 
embarrassed  by  what  (if  they  used  the  word) 
they  would  have  to  call  the  vulgarity  of  visitors 
from  town.  And  he,  who  was  so  cavalier  with 
men  of  his  own  class,  was  sedulous  to  shield 
the  more  tender  feelings  of  the  peasant ;  he, 
who  could  be  so  trying  in  a  drawing-room,  was 
even  punctilious  in  the  cottage.  It  was  in  all 
respects  a  happy  virtue.  It  renewed  his  life, 
during  these  holidays,  in  all  particulars.  It 
often  entertained  him  with  the  discovery  of 
strange  survivals;  as  when,  by  the  orders  of 


2i8     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

Murdoch,  Mrs.  Jenkin  must  publicly  taste  ci 
every  dish  before  it  was  set  before  her  guests. 
And  thus  to  throw  himself  into  a  fresh  life  and 
a  new  school  of  manners  was  a  grateful  exercise 
of  Fleeming's  mimetic  instinct ;  and  to  the 
pleasures  of  the  open  air,  of  hardships  support- 
ed, of  dexterities  improved  and  displayed,  and 
of  plain  and  elegant  society,  added  a  spice  of 
drama. 


II. 

Fleeming  was  all  his  life  a  lover  of  the  play 
and  all  that  belonged  to  it.  Dramatic  literature: 
he  knew  fully.  He  was  one  of  the  not  very  nu- 
merous people  who  can  read  a  play :  a  knack, 
the  fruit  of  much  knowledge  and  some  imag- 
ination, comparable  to  that  of  reading  score, 
Few  men  better  understood  the  artificial  princi- 
ples on  which  a  play  is  good  or  bad ;  few  more 
unaffectedly  enjoyed  a  piece  of  any  merit  of  con- 
struction. His  own  play  was  conceived  with  a 
double  design ;  for  he  had  long  been  filled  with 
his  theory  of  the  true  story  of  Griselda ;  used 
to  gird  at  Father  Chaucer  for  his  misconception  ; 


The  Drama.  219 

and  was,  perhaps  first  of  all,  moved  by  the  de- 
sire to  do  justice  to  the  Marquis  of  Saluces, 
and  perhaps  only  in  the  second  place,  by  the 
wish  to  treat  a  story  (as  he  phrased  it)  like  a  sum 
in  arithmetic.  I  do  not  think  he  quite  suc- 
ceeded ;  but  I  must  own  myself  no  fit  judge. 
Fleeming  and  I  were  teacher  and  taught  as  to 
the  principles,  disputatious  rivals  in  the  prac- 
tice, of  dramatic  writing. 

Acting  had  always,  ever  since  Rachel  and  the 
Marseillaise,  a  particular  power  on  him.  '  If  I 
do  not  cry  at  the  play/  he  used  to  say,  '  I  want 
to  have  my  money  back.'  Even  from  a  poor 
play  with  poor  actors,  he  could  draw  pleasure. 
'Giacometti's  Elisabettaj  I  find  him  writing, 
'  fetched  the  house  vastly.  Poor  Queen  Eliza- 
beth !  And  yet  it  was  a  little  good.'  And 
again,  after  a  night  of  Salvini :  '  I  do  not  sup- 
pose any  one  with  feelings  could  sit  out  Othello, 
if  lago  and  Desdemona  were  acted.'  Salvini 
was,  in  his  view,  the  greatest  actor  he  had  seen. 
We  were  all  indeed  moved  and  bettered  by  the 
visit  of  that  wonderful  man. — '  I  declare  I  feel 
as  if  I  could  pray ! '  cried  one  of  us,  on  the 
return  from  Hamlet. — *  That  is  prayer,'  said 


220     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

Fleeming.  W.  B.  Hole  and  I,  in  a  fine  enthu- 
siasm of  gratitude,  determined  to  draw  up  an 
address  to  Salvini,  did  so,  and  carried  it  to 
Fleeming;  and  I  shall  never  forget  with  what 
coldness  he  heard  and  deleted  the  eloquence  of 
our  draft,  nor  with  what  spirit  (our  vanities  once 
properly  mortified)  he  threw  himself  into  the 
business  of  collecting  signatures.  It  was  his 
part,  on  the  ground  of  his  Italian,  to  see  and 
arrange  with  the  actor ;  it  was  mine  to  write  in 
the  Academy  a  notice  of  the  first  performance 
of  Macbeth.  Fleeming  opened  the  paper,  read 
so  far,  and  flung  it  on  the  floor.  '  No,'  he 
cried,  '  that  won't  do.  You  were  thinking  of 
yourself,  not  of  Salvini ! '  The  criticism  was 
shrewd  as  usual,  but  it  was  unfair  through  ig- 
norance ;  it  was  not  of  myself  that  I  was  think- 
ing, but  of  the  difficulties  of  my  trade  which  I 
had  not  well  mastered.  Another  unalloyed  dra- 
matic pleasure  which  Fleeming  and  I  shared  the 
year  of  the  Paris  Exposition,  was  the  Marquis 
de  Villemer,  that  blameless  play,  performed  by 
Madeleine  Brohan,  Delaunay,  Worms,  and 
Broisat — an  actress,  in  such  parts  at  least,  to 
whom  I  have  never  seen  full  justice  rendered. 


Private   Theatricals.  221 

He  had  his  fill  of  weeping  on  that  occasion ; 
and  when  the  piece  was  at  an  end,  in  front  of  a 
cafe,  in  the  mild,  midnight  air,  we  had  our  fill 
of  talk  about  the  art  of  acting. 

But  what  gave  the  stage  so  strong  a  hold  on 
Fleeming  was  an  inheritance  from  Norwich, 
from  Edward  Barren,  and  from  Enfield  of  the 
Speaker.  The  theatre  was  one  of  Edward  Bar- 
ron's  elegant  hobbies ;  he  read  plays,  as  became 
Enfield's  son-in-law,  with  a  good  discretion  ;  he 
wrote  plays  for  his  family,  in  which  Eliza  Bar- 
ron  used  to  shine  in  the  chief  parts ;  and  later 
in  life,  after  the  Norwich  home  was  broken  up, 
his  little  granddaughter  would  sit  behind  him  in 
a  great  armchair,  and  be  introduced,  with  his 
stately  elocution,  to  the  world  of  dramatic  lit- 
erature. From  this,  in  a  direct  line,  we  can  de- 
duce the  charades  at  Claygate  ;  and  after  money 
came,  in  the  Edinburgh  days,  that  private  thea- 
tre which  took  up  so  much  of  Fleeming's  energy 
and  thought.  The  company — Mr.  and  Mrs.  R. 
O.  Carter  of  Colwall,  W.  B.  Hole,  Captain 
Charles  Douglas,  Mr.  Kunz,  Mr.  Burnett,  Pro- 
fessor Lewis  Campbell,  Mr.  Charles  Baxter,  and 
many  more — made  a  charming  society  for  them- 


222     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

selves  and  gave  pleasure  to  their  audience.  Mr. 
Carter  in  Sir  Toby  Belch  it  would  be  hard  to 
beat.  Mr.  Hole  in  broad  farce,  or  as  the  heraM 
in  the  Trachinics^  showed  true  stage  talent.  As 
for  Mrs.  Jenkin,  it  was  for  her  the  rest  of  us  ex- 
isted and  were  forgiven ;  her  powers  were  an 
endless  spring  of  pride  and  pleasure  to  her  hus- 
band ;  he  spent  hours  hearing  and  schooling  her 
in  private ;  and  when  it  came  to  the  perform- 
ance, though  there  was  perhaps  no  one  in  the 
audience  more  critical,  none  was  more  moved 
than  Fleeming.  The  rest  of  us  did  not  aspire 
so  high.  There  were  always  five  performances 
and  weeks  of  busy  rehearsal ;  and  whether  we 
came  to  sit  and  stifle  as  the  prompter,  to  be  the 
dumb  (or  rather  the  inarticulate)  recipients  of 
Carter's  dog  whip  in  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew, 
or  having  earned  our  spurs,  to  lose  one  more  il- 
lusion in  a  leading  part,  we  were  always  sure  at 
least  of  a  long  and  an  exciting  holiday  in  mirth- 
ful company. 

In  this  laborious  annual  diversion,  Fleeming's 
part  was  large.  I  never  thought  him  an  actor, 
but  he  was  something  of  a  mimic,  which  stood 
him  in  stead.  Thus  he  had  seen  Got  in  Poirier; 


Fleenring  as  an  Actor.  223 

and  his  own  Poirier,  when  he  came  to  play  it, 
breathed  meritoriously  of  the  model.  The  last 
part  I  saw  him  play  was  Triplet,  and  at  first  I 
thought  it  promised  well.  But  alas !  the  boys 
went  for  a  holiday,  missed  a  train,  and  were  not 
heard  of  at  home  till  jate  at  night.  Poor  Fleem- 
irig,  the  man  who  never  hesitated  to  give  his  sons 
a  chisel  or  a  gun,  or  to  send  them  abroad  in  a 
canoe  or  on  a  horse,  toiled  all  day  at  his  re- 
hearsal, growing  hourly  paler,  Triplet  growing 
hourly  less  meritorious.  And  though  the  re- 
turn of  the  children,  none  the  worse  for  their 
little  adventure,  brought  the  colour  back  into 
his  face,  it  could  not  restore  him  to  his  part.  I 
remember  finding  him  seated  on  the  stairs  in 
some  rare  moment  of  quiet  during  the  subse- 
quent performances.  '  Hullo,  Jenkin,'  said  I, 
'  you  look  down  in  the  mouth.' — '  My  dear  boy,' 
said  he, '  haven't  you  heard  me  ?  I  have  not  one 
decent  intonation  from  beginning  to  end.' 

But  indeed  he  never  supposed  himself  an 
actor;  took  a  part,  when  he  took  any,  merely 
for  convenience,  as  one  takes  a  hand  at  whist  ; 
and  found  his  true  service  and  pleasure  in  the 
more  congenial  business  of  the  manager.  Augier, 


224     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

Racine,  Shakespeare,  Aristophanes  in  Hookham 
Frere's  translation,  Sophocles  and  yEschylus  in 
Lewis  Campbell's,  such  were  some  of  the  au- 
thors  whom  he  introduced  to  his  public.  In 
putting  these-  upon  the  stage,  he  found  a  thou- 
sand exercises  for  his  ingenuity  and  taste,  a 
thousand  problems  arising  which  he  delighted 
to  study,  a  thousand  opportunities  to  make 
these  infinitesimal  improvements  which  are  so 
much  in  art  and  for  the  artist.  Our  first  Greek 
play  had  been  costumed  by  the  professional  cos- 
turner,  with  unforgetable  results  of  comicality 
and  indecorum :  the  second,  the  Trachinics  of 
Sophocles,  he  took  in  hand  himself,  and  a  de- 
lightful task  he  made  of  it.  His  study  was 
then  in  antiquarian  books,  where  he  found  con- 
fusion, and  on  statues  and  bas-reliefs,  where  he 
at  last  found  clearness ;  after  an  hour  or  so  at 
the  British  Museum,  he  was  able  to  master  '  the 
chiton,  sleeves  and  all ';  and  before  the  time  was 
ripe,  he  had  a  theory  of  Greek  tailoring  at  his 
fingers'  ends,  and  had  all  the  costumes  made 
under  his  eye  as  a  Greek  tailor  would  have  made 
them.  '  The  Greeks  made  the  best  plays  and 
the  best  statues,  and  were  the  best  architects; 


Stage  Managing.  225 

of  course,  they  were  the  best  tailors,  too/  said 
he  ;  and  was  never  weary,  when  he  could  find  a 
tolerant  listener,  of  dwelling  on  the  simplicity, 
the  economy,  the  elegance  both  of  means  and 
effect,  which  made  their  system  so  delightful. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  stage-man- 
ager's employment.  The  discipline  of  acting  is 
detestable  ;  the  failures  and  triumphs  of  that 
business  appeal  too  directly  to  the  vanity  ;  and 
even  in  the  course  of  a  careful  amateur  per- 
formance such  as  ours,  much  of  the  smaller  side 
of  man  will  be  displayed.  Fleeming,  among 
conflicting  vanities  and  levities,  played  his  part 
to  my  admiration.  He  had  his  own  view ;  he 
might  be  wrong;  but  the  performances  (he 
would  remind  us)  were  after  all  his,  and  he 
must  decide.  He  was,  in  this  as  in  all  other 
things,  an  iron  taskmaster,  sparing  not  himself 
nor  others.  If  you  were  going  to  do  it  at  all, 
he  would  see  that  it  was  done  as  well  as  you 
were  able.  I  have  known  him  to  keep  two  cul- 
prits (and  one  of  these  his  wife)  repeating  the 
same  action  and  the  same  two  or  three  words 
for  a  whole  weary  afternoon.  And  yet  he 
gained  and  retained  warm  feelings  from  far  the 


226     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

most  of  those  who  fell  under  his  domination, 
and  particularly  (it  is  pleasant  to  remember) 
from  the  girls.  After  the  slipshod  training  and 
the  incomplete  accomplishments  of  a  girls' 
school,  there  was  something  at  first  annoying 
at  last  exciting  and  bracing,  in  this  high  stand 
ard  of  accomplishment  and  perseverance. 

III. 

It  did  not  matter  why  he  entered  upon  any 
study  or  employment,  whether  for  amusement 
like  the  Greek  tailoring  or  the  Highland  reels, 
whether  from  a  desire  to  serve  the  public  as 
with  his  sanitary  work,  or  in  the  view  of  bene- 
fiting poorer  men  as  with  his  labours  for  tech- 
nical education,  he  '  pitched  into  it '  (as  he  would 
have  said  himself)  with  the  same  headlong  zest. 
I  give  in  the  Appendix  a  letter  from  Colonel 
Fe'-gusson,  which  tells  fully  the  nature  of  the 
sanitary  work  and  of  Fleeming's  part  and  suc- 
cess in  it.  It  will  be  enough  to  say  here  that  it 
was  a  scheme  of  protection  against  the  blunder- 
ing of  builders  and  the  dishonesty  of  plumbers. 
Started  with  an  eye  rather  to  the  houses  of  the 


Sanitary  Associations.  227 

rich,  Fleeming  hoped  his  Sanitary  Associations 
would  soon  extend  their  sphere  of  usefulness 
and  improve  the  dwellings  of  the  poor.  In  this 
hope  he  was  disappointed  ;  but  in  all  other  ways 
the  scheme  exceedingly  prospered,  associations 
sprang  up  and  continue  to  spring  up  in  many 
quarters,  and  wherever  tried  they  have  been 
found  of  use. 

Here,  then,  was  a  serious  employment ;  it  has 
proved  highly  useful  to  mankind ;  and  it  was 
begun  besides,  in  a  mood  of  bitterness,  under 
the  shock  of  what  Fleeming  would  so  sensitive- 
ly feel — the  death  of  a  whole  family  of  children. 
Yet  it  was  gone  upon  like  a  holiday  jaunt.  I 
read  in  Colonel  Fergusson's  letter  that  his 
schoolmates  bantered  him  when  he  began  to 
broach  his  scheme  ;  so  did  I  at  first,  and  he  took 
the  banter  as  he  always  did  with  enjoyment, 
until  he  suddenly  posed  me  with  the  question  : 
'  And  now  do  you  see  any  other  jokes  to  make  ? 
Well,  then,'  said  he, '  that's  all  right.  I  wanted 
you  to  have  your  fun  out  first ;  now  we  can  be 
serious.'  And  then  with  a  glowing  heat  of 
pleasure,  he  laid  his  plans  before  me,  revelling 
in  the  details,  revelling  in  hope.  It  was  as  he 


228     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

wrote  about  the  joy  of  electrical  experiment  • 
'  What  shall  I  compare  them  to  ?  A  new  song  ? 
— a  Greek  play  ?  '  Delight  attended  the  exer- 
cise of  all  his  powers  ;  delight  painted  the  future. 
Of  these  ideal  visions,  some  (as  I  have  said) 
failed  of  their  fruition.  And  the  illusion  was 
characteristic.  Fleeming  believed  we  had  only 
to  make  a  virtue  cheap  and  easy,  and  then  al. 
would  practise  it;  that  for  an  end  unquestion- 
ably good,  men  would  not  grudge  a  little  trouble 
and  a  little  money,  though  they  might  stumble 
at  laborious  pains  and  generous  sacrifices.  He 
could  not  believe  in  any  resolute  badness.  '  I 
cannot  quite  say,'  he  wrote  in  his  young  man- 
hood, '  that  I  think  there  is  no  sin  or  misery. 
This  I  can  say  :  I  do  not  remember  one  single 
malicious  act  done  to  myself.  In  fact  it  is 
rather  awkward  when  I  have  to  say  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  I  have  nobody's  trespasses  to  forgive.' 
And  to  the  point,  I  remember  one  of  our  dis- 
cussions. I  said  it  was  a  dangerous  error  not 
to  admit  there  were  bad  people ;  he,  that  it  was 
only  a  confession  of  blindness  on  our  part,  and 
that  we  probably  called  others  bad  only  so  far 
as  we  were  wrapped  in  ourselves  and  lacking  in 


The  Phonograph.  229 

the  transmigratory  forces  of  imagination.  1 
undertook  to  describe  to  him  three  persons  ir- 
redeemably bad  and  whom  he  should  admit  to 
be  so.  In  the  first  case,  he  denied  my  evidence  : 
'You  cannot  judge  a  man  upon  such  testimony/ 
said  he.  For  the  second,  he  owned  it  made  him 
sick  to  hear  the  tale;  but  then  there  was  no 
spark  of  malice,  it  was  mere  weakness  I  had  de- 
scribed, and  he  had  never  denied  nor  thought 
to  set  a  limit  to  man's  weakness.  At  my 
third  gentleman,  he  struck  his  colours.  '  Yes,' 
said  he,  'I'm  afraid  that  is  a  bad  man.'  And 
then  looking  at  me  shrewdly:  'I  wonder  if  it 
isn't  a  very  unfortunate  thing  for  you  to  have 
met  him.'  I  showed  him  radiantly  how  it  was 
the  world  we  must  know,  the  world  as  it  was, 
not  a  world  expurgated  and  prettified  with 
optimistic  rainbows.  '  Yes,  yes,'  said  he  ;  '  but 
this  badness  is  such  an  easy,  lazy  explanation. 
Won't  you  be  tempted  to  use  it,  instead  of  try- 
ing to  understand  people  ? ' 

In  the  year  1878,  he  took  a  passionate  fancy 
for  the  phonograph  :  it  was  a  toy  after  his  heart, 
a  toy  that  touched  the  skirts  of  life,  art,  and 
science,  a  toy  prolific  of  problems  and  theories. 


230     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

Something  fell  to  be  done  for  a  University 
Cricket  Ground  Bazaar.  '  And  the  thought 
struck  him,'  Mr.  Ewing  writes  to  me,  '  to  ex- 
hibit Edison's  phonograph,  then  the  very  new- 
est scientific  marvel.  The  instrument  itself  was 
not  to  be  purchased — I  think  no  specimen  had 
then  crossed  the  Atlantic — but  a  copy  of  the 
Times  with  an  account  of  it  was  at  hand,  and 
by  the  help  of  this  we  made  a  phonograph  which 
to  our  great  joy  talked,  and  talked,  too,  with  the 
purest  American  accent.  It  was  so  good  that 
a  second  instrument  was  got  ready  forthwith. 
Both  were  shown  at  the  Bazaar :  one  by  Mrs. 
Jenkin  to  people  willing  to  pay  half  a  crown  for 
a  private  view  and  the  privilege  of  hearing  their 
own  voices,  while  Jenkin,  perfervid  as  usual, 
gave  half-hourly  lectures  on  the  other  in  an  ad- 
joining room — I,  as  his  lieutenant,  taking  turns. 
The  thing  was  in  its  way  a  little  triumph.  A 
few  of  the  visitors  were  deaf,  and  hugged  the 
belief  that  they  were  the  victims  of  a  new  kind 
of  fancy-fair  swindle.  Of  the  others,  many  who 
came  to  scoff  remained  to  take  raffle  tickets; 
and  one  of  the  phonographs  was  finally  disposed 
of  in  this  way,  falling,  by  a  happy  freak  of  the 


The  Phonograph.  231 

ballot-box,  into  the  hands  of  Sir  William  Thom- 
son.' The  other  remained  in  Fleeming's  hands, 
and  was  a  source  of  infinite  occupation.  Once 
it  was  sent  to  London,  '  to  bring  back  on  the 
tinfoil  the  tones  of  a  lady  distinguished  for  clear 
vocalisations ;  at  another  time  Sir  Robert  Chris- 
tison  was  brought  in  to  contribute  his  powerful 
bass ';  and  there  scarcely  came  a  visitor  about 
the  house,  but  he  was  made  the  subject  of  ex- 
periment. The  visitors,  I  am  afraid,  took  their 
parts  lightly :  Mr.  Hole  and  I,  with  unscientific 
laughter,  commemorating  various  shades  of 
Scotch  accent,  or  proposing  to  '  teach  the  poor 
dumb  animal  to  swear.'  But  Fleeming  and  Mr. 
Ewing,  when  we  butterflies  were  gone,  were  la- 
boriously ardent.  Many  thoughts  that  occu- 
pied the  later  years  of  my  friend  were  caught 
from  the  small  utterance  of  that  toy.  Thence 
came  his  inquiries  into  the  roots  of  articulate 
language  and  the  foundations  of  literary  art ; 
his  papers  on  vowel  sounds,  his  papers  in  the 
Saturday  Review  upon  the  laws  of  verse,  and 
many  a  strange  approximation,  many  a  just 
note,  thrown  out  in  talk  and  now  forgotten.  I 
pass  over  dozens  of  his  interests,  and  dwell  on 


232     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

this  trifling  matter  of  the  phonograph,  because 
it  seems  to  me  that  it  depicts  the  man.  So,  for 
Fleeming,  one  thing  joined  into  another,  the 
greater  with  the  less.  He  cared  not  where  it 
was  he  scratched  the  surface  of  the  ultimate 
mystery — in  the  child's  toy,  in  the  great  tragedy, 
in  the  laws  of  the  tempest,  or  in  the  properties 
of  energy  or  mass — certain  that  whatever  he 
touched,  it  was  a  part  of  life — and  however  he 
touched  it,  there  would  flow  for  his  happy  con- 
stitution interest  and  delight.  '  All  fables  have 
their  morals,'  says  Thoreau,  '  but  the  innocent 
enjoy  the  story.'  There  is  a  truth  represented 
for  the  imagination  in  these  lines  of  a  noble 
poem,  where  we  are  told,  that  in  our  highest 
hours  of  visionary  clearness,  we  can  but 

'see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore.' 

To  this  clearness  Fleeming  had  attained ;  and 
although  he  heard  the  voice  of  the  eternal  seas 
and  weighed  its  message,  he  was  yet  able,  until 
the  end  of  his  life,  to  sport  upon  these  shores 
of  death  and  mystery  with  the  gaiety  and  inno- 
cence of  children. 


Fie  em  ing  as  a  Professor.         233 

IV. 

It  was  as  a  student  that  I  first  knew  Fleem- 
ing,  as  one  of  that  modest  number  of  young 
men  who  sat  under  his  ministrations  in  a  soul- 
chilling  class-room  at  the  top  of  the  University 
buildings.  His  presence  was  against  him  as  a 
professor :  no  one,  least  of  all  students,  would 
have  been  moved  to  respect  him  at  first  sight : 
rather  short  in  stature,  markedly  plain,  boyishly 
young  in  manner,  cocking  his  head  like  a  terrier 
with  every  mark  of  the  most  engaging  vivacity 
and  readiness  to  be  pleased,  full  of  words,  full 
of  paradox,  a  stranger  could  scarcely  fail  to  look 
at  him  twice,  a  man  thrown  with  him  in  a  train 
could  scarcely  fail  to  be  engaged  by  him  in  talk, 
but  a  student  would  never  regard  him  as  aca- 
demical. Yet  he  had  that  fibre  in  him  that  order 
always  existed  in  his  class-room.  I  do  not  re- 
member that  he  ever  addressed  me  in  language  ; 
at  the  least  sign  of  unrest,  his  eye  would  fall  on 
me  and  I  was  quelled.  Such  a  feat  is  compara- 
tively easy  in  a  small  class ;  but  I  have  misbe- 
haved in  smaller  classes  and  under  eyes  more 
Olympian  than  Fleeming  Jenkin's.  He  was 


234     Memoir  of  F leaning  Jenkin. 

simply  a  man  from  whose  reproof  one  shrank  ; 
in  manner  the  least  buckrammed  of  mankind,  he 
had,  in  serious  moments,  an  extreme  dignity  of 
goodness.  So  it  was  that  he  obtained  a  power 
over  the  most  insubordinate  of  students,  but  a 
power  of  which  I  was  myself  unconscious.  I 
was  inclined  to  regard  any  professor  as  a  joke, 
and  Fleeming  as  a  particularly  good  joke,  per- 
haps the  broadest  in  the  vast  pleasantry  of  my 
curriculum.  I  was  not  able  to  follow  his  lec- 
tures ;  I  somehow  dared  not  misconduct  my- 
self, as  was  my  customary  solace ;  and  I  re- 
frained from  attending.  This  brought  me  at 
the  end  of  the  session  into  a  relation  with  my 
contemned  professor  that  completely  opened 
my  eyes.  Daring  the  year,  bad  student  as  I 
was,  he  had  shown  a  certain  leaning  to  my  so- 
ciety;  I  had  been  to  his  house,  he  had  askc-i 
me  to  take  a  humble  part  in  his  theatricals ;  I 
was  a  master  in  the  art  of  extracting  a  certifi- 
cate even  at  the  cannon's  mouth ;  and  I  was  un- 
der no  apprehension.  But  when  I  approached 
Fleeming,  I  found  myself  in  another  world  ;  he 
would  have  naught  of  me.  '  It  is  quite  useless 
for  you  to  come  to  me,  Mr.  Stevenson.  There 


A   Student's   Certificate.          235 

may  be  doubtful  cases,  there  is  no  doubt  about 
ycurs.  You  have  simply  not  attended  my  class.' 
The  document  was  necessary  to  me  for  family 
considerations  ;  and  presently  I  stooped  to  such 
pleadings  and  rose  to  such  adjurations,  as  made 
my  ears  burn  to  remember.  He  was  quite  un- 
moved ;  he  had  no  pity  for  me. — '  You  are  no 
fool,'  said  he,  'and  you  chose  your  course.'  I 
showed  him  that  he  had  misconceived  his  duty, 
that  certificates  were  things  of  form,  attendance 
a  matter  of  taste.  Two  things,  he  replied,  had 
been  required  for  graduation,  a  certain  compe- 
tency proved  in  the  final  trials  and  a  certain  pe- 
riod of  genuine  training  proved  by  certificate ; 
if  he  did  as  I  desired,  not  less  than  if  he  gave 
me  hints  for  an  examination,  he  was  aiding  me 
to  steal  a  degree.  '  You  see,  Mr.  Stevenson, 
these  are  the  laws  and  I  am  here  to  apply 
them,'  said  he.  I  could  not  say  but  that  this 
view  was  tenable,  though  it  was  new  to  me ;  I 
changed  my  attack:  it  was  only  for  my  father's 
eye  that  I  required  his  signature,  it  need  never 
go  to  the  Senatus,  I  had  already  certificates 
enough  to  justify  my  year's  attendance.  '  Bring 
them  to  me;  I  cannot  take  your  word  for  that/ 


236     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

said  he.  '  Then  I  will  consider.'  The  next  day 
I  came  charged  with  my  certificates,  a  humble 
assortment.  And  when  he  had  satisfied  him- 
self, '  Remember,'  said  he,  '  that  I  can  promise 
nothing,  but  I  will  try  to  find  a  form  of  words.' 
He  did  find  one,  and  I  am  still  ashamed  when  I 
think  of  his  shame  in  giving  me  that  paper.  He 
made  no  reproach  in  speech,  but  his  manner 
was  the  more  eloquent ;  it  told  me  plainly  what 
a  dirty  business  we  were  on ;  and  I  went  from 
his  presence,  with  my  certificate  indeed  in  my 
possession,  but  with  no  answerable  sense  of  tri- 
umph. That  was  the  bitter  beginning  of  my 
love  for  Fleeming ;  I  never  thought  lightly  of 
him  afterwards. 

Once,  and  once  only,  after  our  friendship  was 
truly  founded,  did  we  come  to  a  considerable 
difference.  It  was,  by  the  rules  of  poor  human- 
ity, my  fault  and  his.  I  had  been  led  to  dabble 
in  society  journalism ;  and  this  coming  to  his 
ears,  he  felt  it  like  a  disgrace  upon  himself.  So 
far  he  was  exactly  in  the  right ;  but  he  wa^  scarce 
happily  inspired  when  he  broached  the  subject 
at  his  own  table  and  before  guests  who  were 
strangers  to  me.  It  was  the  sort  of  error  he  was 


Flecm  ing 's    Tact.  ,237 

always  ready  to  repent,  but  always  certain  to  re- 
peat ;  and  on  this  occasion  he  spoke  so  freely 
that  I  soon  made  an  excuse  and  left  the  house 
with  the  firm  purpose  of  returning  no  more. 
About  a  month  later,  I  met  him  at  dinner  at  a 
common  friend's.  '  Now,'  said  he,  on  the  stairs, 
'  I  engage  you — like  a  lady  to  dance — for  the 
end  of  the  evening.  You  have  no  right  to  quarrel 
with  me  and  not  give  me  a  chance.'  I  have  often 
said  and  thought  that  Fleeming  had  no  tact ;  he 
belied  the  opinion  then.  I  remember  perfectly 
how,  so  soon  as  we  could  get  together,  he  began 
his  attack :  '  You  may  have  grounds  of  quarrel 
with  me ;  you  have  none  against  Mrs.  Jenkin ;  and 
before  I  say  another  word,  I  want  you  to  prom- 
ise you  will  come  to  her  house  as  usual.'  An 
interview  thus  begun  could  have  but  one  end- 
ing :  if  the  quarrel  were  the  fault  of  both,  the 
merit  of  the  reconciliation  was  entirely  Fleem- 
ing's. 

When  our  intimacy  first  began,  coldly  enough, 
accidentally  enough  on  his  part,  he  had  still 
something  of  the  Puritan,  something  of  the  in- 
human narrowness  of  the  good  youth.  It  fell 
from  him  slowly,  year  by  year,  as  he  continued 


238     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

to  ripen,  and  grow  milder,  and  understand  more 
generously  the  mingled  characters  of  men.  In 
the  early  days  he  once  read  me  a  bitter  lecture ; 
and  I  remember  leaving  his  house  in  a  fine 
spring  afternoon,  with  the  physical  darkness  of 
despair  upon  my  eyesight.  Long  after  he  made 
me  a  formal  retractation  of  the  sermon  and  a 
formal  apology  for  the  pain  he  had  inflicted ; 
adding  drolly,  but  truly,  '  You  see,  at  that  time 
1  was  so  much  younger  than  you  ! '  And  yet 
even  in  those  days  there  was  much  to  learn  from 
him  ;  and  above  all  his  fine  spirit  of  piety,  bravely 
and  trustfully  accepting  life,  and  his  singular  de- 
light in  the  heroic. 

His  piety  was,  indeed,  a  thing  of  chief  im- 
portance. His  views  (as  they  are  called)  upon 
religious  matters  varied  much ;  and  he  could 
never  be  induced  to  think  them  more  or  less 
than  views.  '  All  dogma  is  to  me  mere  form,' 
he  wrote  ;  '  dogmas  are  mere  blind  struggles  to 
express  the  inexpressible.  I  cannot  conceive 
that  any  single  proposition  whatever  in  religion 
is  true  in  the  scientific  sense ;  and  yet  all  the 
while  I  think  the  religious  view  of  the  world  is 
the  most  true  view.  Try  to  separate  from  the 


Religion  and  Morality.  239 

mass  of  their  statements  that  which  is  common 
to  Socrates,  Isaiah,  David,  St.  Bernard,  the 
Jansenists,  Luther,  Mahomet,  Bunyan — yes,  and 
George  Eliot :  of  course  you  do  not  believe  that 
this  something  could  be  written  down  in  a  set 
of  propositions  like  Euclid,  neither  will  you 
deny  that  there  is  something  common  and  this 
something  very  valuable.  ...  I  shall  be  sorry 
if  the  boys  ever  give  a  moment's  thought  to  the 
question  of  what  community  they  belong  to — 
I  hope  they  will  belong  to  the  great  community.' 
I  should  observe  that  as  time  went  on  his  con- 
formity to  the  church  in  which  he  was  born 
grew  more  complete,  and  his  views  drew  nearer 
the  conventional.  '  The  longer  I  live,  my  dear 
Louis,'  he  wrote  but  a  few  months  before  his 
death,  'the  more  convinced  I  become  of  a  direct 
care  by  God — which  is  reasonably  impossible — 
but  there  it  is.'  And  in  his  last  year  he  took 
the  communion. 

But  at  the  time  when  I  fell  under  his  influence, 
he  stood  more  aloof;  and  this  made  him  the 
more  impressive  to  a  youthful  atheist.  He  had 
a  keen  sense  of  language  and  its  imperial  in- 
fluence on  men;  language  contained  all  the 


240     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

great  and  sound  metaphysics,  he  was  wont  to 
say ;  and  a  word  once  made  and  generally  un- 
derstood, he  thought  a  real  victory  of  man  and 
reason.  But  he  never  dreamed  it  could  be  ac- 
curate, knowing  that  words  stand  symbol  for 
the  indefinable.  I  came  to  him  once  with  a 
problem  which  had  puzzled  me  out  of  measure : 
what  is  a  cause  ?  why  out  of  so  many  innumer- 
able millions  of  conditions,  all  necessary,  should 
one  be  singled  out  and  ticketed  'the  cause'? 
'You  do  not  understand,'  said  he.  'A  cause  is 
the  answer  to  a  question :  it  designates  that 
condition  which  I  happen  to  know  and  you 
happen  not  to  know.'  It  was  thus,  with 
partial  exception  of  the  mathematical,  that 
he  thought  of  all  means  of  reasoning:  they 
were  in  his  eyes  but  means  of  communica- 
tion, so  to  be  understood,  so  to  be  judged, 
and  only  so  far  to  be  credited.  The  mathemat- 
ical he  made,  I  say,  exception  of:  number  and 
measure  he  believed  in  to  the  extent  of  their 
significance,  but  that  significance,  he  was  never 
weary  of  reminding  you,  was  slender  to  the 
verge  of  nonentity.  Science  was  true,  because 
it  told  us  almost  nothing.  With  a  few  abstrac- 


Truth  and  Right.  241 

tions  it  could  deal,  and  deal  correctly ;  convey- 
ing honestly  faint  truths.  Apply  its  means  to 
any  concrete  fact  of  life,  and  this  high  dialect 
of  the  wise  became  a  childish  jargon. 

Thus  the  atheistic  youth  was  met  at  every 
turn  by  a  scepticism  more  complete  than  his 
own,  so  that  the  very  weapons  of  the  fight  were 
changed  in  his  grasp  to  swords  of  paper.  Cer- 
tainly the  church  is  not  right,  he  would  argue, 
but  certainly  not  the  anti-church  either.  Men 
are  not  such  fools  as  to  be  wholly  in  the  wrong, 
nor  yet  are  they  so  placed  as  to  be  ever  wholly 
in  the  right.  Somewhere,  in  mid  air  between 
the  disputants,  like  hovering  Victory  in  some 
design  of  a  Greek  battle,  the  truth  hangs  un- 
discerned.  And  in  the  meanwhile  what  matter 
these  uncertainties  ?  Right  is  very  obvious ;  a 
great  consent  of  the  best  of  mankind,  a  loud 
voice  within  us  (whether  of  God,  or  whether  by 
inheritance,  and  in  that  case  still  from  God), 
guide  and  command  us  in  the  path  of  duty. 
He  saw  life  very  simple;  he  did  not  love  re- 
finements; he  was  a  friend  to  much  conformity 
in  unessentials.  For  (he  would  argue)  it  is  in 
this  life  as  it  stands  about  us,  that  we  are  given 


242     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jen  kin. 

our  problem ;  the  manners  of  the  day  are  the 
colours  of  our  palette ;  they  condition,  they 
constrain  us ;  and  a  man  must  be  very  sure  he 
is  in  the  right,  must  (in  a  favourite  phrase  of 
his)  be  '  either  very  wise  or  very  vain,'  to  break 
with  any  general  consent  in  ethics.  I  remember 
taking  his  advice  upon  some  point  of  conduct. 
'  Now,'  he  said,  '  ho\v  do  you  suppose  Christ 
would  have  advised  you  ? '  and  when  I  had  an- 
swered that  he  would  not  have  counselled  me 
anything  unkind  or  cowardly, '  No,'  he  said,  with 
one  of  his  shrewd  strokes  at  the  weakness  of  his 
hearer,  '  nor  anything  amusing.'  Later  in  life, 
he  made  less  certain  in  the  field  of  ethics.  '  The 
old  story  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  is  a 
very  true  one,'  I  find  him  writing;  only  (he  goes 
on)  '  the  effect  of  the  original  dose  is  much 
worn  out,  leaving  Adam's  descendants  with  the 
knowledge  that  there  is  such  a  thing — but  un- 
certain where.'  His  growing  sense  of  this  am- 
biguity made  him  less  swift  to  condemn,  but  no 
less  stimulating  in  counsel.  'You  grant  your- 
self certain  freedoms.  Very  well,'  he  would 
say,  '  I  want  to  see  you  pay  for  them  some  other 
way.  You  positively  cannot  do  this :  then  there 


His  Love  of  Heroism.  243 

positively  must  be  something  else  that  you  can 
do,  and  I  want  to  see  you  find  that  out  and  do 
it.'  Fleeming  >would  never  suffer  you  to  think 
that  you  were  living,  if  there  were  not,  some- 
where in  your  life,  some  touch  of  heroism,  to 
do  or  to  endure. 

This  was  his  rarest  quality.  Far  on  in  middle 
age,  when  men  begin  to  lie  down  with  the  bes- 
tial goddesses,  Comfort  and  Respectability,  the 
strings  of  his  nature  still  sounded  as  high  a 
note  as  a  young  man's.  He  loved  the  harsh 
vx»ice  of  duty  like  a  call  to  battle.  He  loved 
courage,  enterprise,  brave  natures,  a  brave  word, 
an  ugly  virtue ;  everything  that  lifts  us  above 
the  table  where  we  eat  or  the  bed  we  sleep 
upon.  This  with  no  touch  of  the  motive-monger 
or  the  ascetic.  He  loved  his  virtues  to  be  prac- 
tical, his  heroes  to  be  great  eaters  of  beef ;  he 
loved  the  jovial  Heracles,  loved  the  astute 
Odysseus;  not  the  Robespierres  and  Wesleys. 
A  fine  buoyant  sense  of  life  and  of  man's  un- 
equal character  ran  through  all  his  thoughts. 
He  could  not  tolerate  the  spirit  of  the  pick- 
thank  ;  being  what  we  are,  he  wished  us  to  see 
others  with  a  generous  eye  of  admiration,  not 


244     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenktn. 

with  the  smallness  of  the  seeker  after  faults.  If 
there  shone  anywhere  a  virtue,  no  matter  how 
incongruously  set,  it  was  upon,  the  virtue  we 
must  fix  our  eyes.  I  remember  having  found 
much  entertainment  in  Voltaire's  Saul,  and  tell- 
ing him  what  seemed  to  me  the  drollest  touches. 
He  heard  me  out,  as  usual  when  displeased,  and 
then  opened  fire  on  me  with  red-hot  shot.  To 
belittle  a  noble  story  was  easy ;  it  was  not  liter- 
ature, it  was  not  art,  it  was  not  morality ;  there 
was  no  sustenance  in  such  a  form  of  jesting, 
there  was  (in  his  favourite  phrase)  '  no  nitrog- 
enous food'  in  such  literature.  And  then  he 
proceeded  to  show  what  a  fine  fellow  David 
was ;  and  what  a  hard  knot  he  was  in  about 
Bathsheba,  so  that  (the  initial  wrong  committed) 
honour  might  well  hesitate  in  the  choice  of  con- 
duct ;  and  what  owls  those  people  were  who 
marvelled  because  an  Eastern  tyrant  had  killed 
Uriah,  instead  of  marvelling  that  he  had  not 
killed  the  prophet  also.  '  Now  if  Voltaire  had 
helped  me  to  feel  that,'  said  he,  '  I  could  have 
seen  some  fun  in  it.'  He  loved  the  comedy  which 
shows  a  hero  human,  and  yet  leaves  him  a  hero , 
and  the  laughter  which  does  not  lessen  love. 


Taste  in  Literature.  245 

It  was  this  taste  for  what  is  fine  in  human- 
kind, that  ruled  his  choice  in  books.  These 
should  all  strike  a  high  note,  whether  brave  or 
tender,  and  smack  of  the  open  air.  The  noble 
and  simple  presentation  of  things  noble  and 
simple,  that  was  the  '  nitrogenous  food '  of 
which  he  spoke  so  much,  which  he  sought  so 
eagerly,  enjoyed  so  royally.  He  wrote  to  an 
author,  the  first  part  of  whose  story  he  had  seen 
with  sympathy,  hoping  that  it  might  continue 
in  the  same  vein.  '  That  this  may  be  so/  he 
wrote,  '  I  long  with  the  longing  of  David  for 
the  water  of  Bethlehem.  But  no  man  need  die 
for  the  water  a  poet  can  give,  and  all  can 
drink  it  to  the  end  of  time,  and  their  thirst  be 
quenched  and  the  pool  never  dry — and  the 
thirst  and  the  water  are  both  blessed.'  It  was 
in  the  Greeks  particularly  that  he  found  this 
blessed  water ;  he  loved  '  a  fresh  air '  which  he 
found  '  about  the  Greek  things  even  in  trans- 
lations ';  he  loved  their  freedom  from  the  mawk- 
ish and  the  rancid.  The  tale  of  David  in  the 
Bible,  the  Odyssey,  Sophocles,  /Eschylus,  Shake- 
speare,  Scott ;  old  Dumas  in  his  chivalrous  note ; 
Dickens  rather  than  Thackeray,  and  the  Tale  oj 


246     Memoir  of  F kerning  Jenktn. 

Two  Cities  out  of  Dickens :  such  were  some  of 
his  preferences.  To  Ariosto  and  Boccaccio  he 
was  always  faithful;  Burnt  Njal  was  a  late 
favourite ;  and  he  found  at  least  a  passing  en- 
tertainment in  the  Arcadia  and  the  Grand  Cyrus. 
George  Eliot  he  outgrew,  finding  her  latterly 
only  sawdust  in  the  mouth ;  but  her  influence, 
while  it  lasted,  was  great,  and  must  have  gone 
some  way  to  form  his  mind.  He  was  easily  set 
on  edge,  however,  by  didactic  writing;  and  held 
that  books  should  teach  no  other  lesson  but 
what  '  real  life  would  teach,  were  it  as  vividly 
presented.'  Again,  it  was  the  thing  made  that 
took  him,  the  drama  in  the  book ;  to  the  book 
itself,  to  any  merit  of  the  making,  he  was  long 
strangely  blind.  He  would  prefer  the  Agamem- 
non in  the  prose  of  Mr.  Buckley,  ay,  to  Keats. 
But  he  was  his  mother's  son,  learning  to  the 
last.  He  told  me  one  day  that  literature  was 
not  a  trade ;  that  it  was  no  craft ;  that  the  pro- 
fessed author  was  merely  an  amateur  with  a 
door-plate.  '  Very  well,'  said  I,  '  the  first  time 
you  get  a  proof,  I  will  demonstrate  that  it  is  as 
much  a  trade  as  bricklaying,  and  that  you  do 
not  know  it.'  By  the  very  next  post,  a  proof 


Fleeming  as  a    Writer.  247 

came.  I  opened  it  with  fear ;  for  he  was  indeed, 
as  the  reader  will  see  by  these  volumes,  a  for- 
midable amateur;  always  wrote  brightly,  be- 
cause he  always  thought  trenchantly ;  and  some- 
times wrote  brilliantly,  as  the  worst  of  whistlers 
may  sometimes  stumble  on  a  perfect  intonation. 
But  it  was  all  for  the  best  in  the  interests  of  his 
education ;  and  I  was  able,  over  that  proof,  to 
give  him  a  quarter  of  an  hour  such  as  Fleeming 
loved  both  to  give  and  to  receive.  His  subse- 
quent training  passed  out  of  my  hands  into 
those  of  our  common  friend,  W.  E.  Henley. 
'  Henley  and  I/  he  wrote,  '  have  fairly  good 
times  wigging  one  another  for  not  doing  better. 
I  wig  him  because  he  won't  try  to  write  a  real 
play,  and  he  wigs  me  because  I  can't  try  to 
write  English.'  When  I  next  saw  him,  he  was 
full  of  his  new  acquisitions.  '  And  yet  I  have 
lost  something  too,'  he  said  regretfully.  '  Up 
to  now  Scott  seemed  to  me  quite  perfect,  he 
was  all  I  wanted.  Since  I  have  been  learning 
this  confounded  thing.  I  took  up  one  of  the 
novels,  and  a  great  deal  of  it  is  both  careless 
and  clumsy.' 


248     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin* 

V. 

He  spoke  four  languages  with  freedom,  not 
even  English  with  any  marked  propriety.  What 
he  uttered  was  not  so  much  well  said,  as  excel- 
lently acted :  so  we  may  hear  every  day  the  in- 
expressive language  of  a  poorly-written  drama 
assume  character  and  colour  in  the  hands  of  a 
good  player.  No  man  had  more  of  the  vis 
comica  in  private  life ;  he  played  no  character 
on  the  stage,  as  he  could  play  himself  among 
his  friends.  It  was  one  of  his  special  charms ; 
now  when  the  voice  is  silent  and  the  face  still, 
it  makes  it  impossible  to  do  justice  to  his  power 
in  conversation.  He  was  a  delightful  companion 
to  such  as  can  bear  bracing  weather ;  not  to  the 
very  vain  ;  not  to  the  owlishly  wise,  who  cannot 
have  their  dogmas  canvassed ;  not  to  the  pain- 
fully  refined,  whose  sentiments  become  articles 
of  faith.  The  spirit  in  which  he  could  write 
that  he  was  '  much  revived  by  having  an  oppor- 
tunity of  abusing  Whistler  to  a  knot  of  his  special 
admirers,'  is  a  spirit  apt  to  be  misconstrued. 
He  was  not  a  dogmatist,  even  about  Whistler. 
*  The  house  is  full  of  pretty  things,'  he  wrote, 


His  Individuality.  249 

when  on  a  visit ;  '  but  Mrs. 's  taste  in  pretty 

things  has  one  very  bad  fault :  it  is  not  my  taste.' 
And  that  was  the  true  attitude  of  his  mind  ;  but 
these  eternal  differences  it  was  his  joy  to  thresh 
out  and  wrangle  over  by  the  hour.  It  was  no 
wonder  if  he  loved  the  Greeks ;  he  was  in  many 
ways  a  Greek  himself;  he  should  have  been  a 
sophist  and  met  Socrates  ;  he  would  have  loved 
Socrates,  and  done  battle  with  him  staunchly 
and  manfully  owned  his  defeat  ;  and  the  dia- 
logue, arranged  by  Plato,  would  have  shown 
even  in  Plato's  gallery.  He  seemed  in  talk 
aggressive,  petulant,  full  of  a  singular  energy ; 
as  vain  you  would  have  said  as  a  peacock,  until 
you  trod  on  his  toes,  and  then  you  saw  that  he 
was  at  least  clear  of  all  the  sicklier  elements  of 
vanity.  Soundly  rang  his  laugh  at  any  jest 
against  himself.  He  wished  to  be  taken,  as  he 
took  others,  for  what  was  good  in  him  without 
dissimulation  of  the  evil,  for  what  was  wise  in 
him  without  concealment  of  the  childish.  He 
hated  a  draped  virtue,  and  despised  a  wit  on  its 
own  defence.  And  he  drew  (if  I  may  so  express 
myself)  a  human  and  humorous  portrait  of  him- 
self with  all  his  defects  and  qualities,  as  he  thus 


250     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

enjoyed  in  talk  the  robust  sports  of  the  intelli- 
gence ;  giving  and  taking  manfully,  always  with- 
out pretence,  always  with  paradox,  always  with 
exuberant  pleasure ;  speaking  wisely  of  what  he 
knew,  foolishly  of  what  he  knew  not  ;  a  teacher, 
a  learner,  but  still  combative ;  picking  holes  in 
what  was  said  even  to  the  length  of  captious- 
ness,  yet  aware  of  all  that  was  said  rightly; 
jubilant  in  victory,  delighted  by  defeat  :  a  Greek 
sophist,  a  British  schoolboy. 

Among  the  legends  of  what  was  once  a  very 
pleasant  spot,  the  old  Savile  Club,  not  then  di- 
vorced from  Savile  Row,  there  are  many  mem- 
ories of  Fleeming.  He  was  not  popular  at  first, 
being  known  simply  as  '  the  man  who  dines  here 
and  goes  up  to  Scotland ';  but  he  grew  at  last, 
I  think,  the  most  generally  liked  of  all  the  mem- 
bers. To  those  who  truly  knew  and  loved  him, 
who  had  tasted  the  real  sweetness  of  his  nature, 
Fleeming's  porcupine  ways  had  always  been  a 
matter  of  keen  regret.  They  introduced  him 
to  their  own  friends  with  fear ;  sometimes  re- 
called the  step  with  mortification.  It  was  not 
possible  to  look  on  with  patience  while  a  man 
so  lovable  thwarted  love  at  every  step.  But 


Fleeming's  Popularity.  251 

the  course  of  time  and  the  ripening  of  his  nature 
brought  a  cure.  It  was  at  the  Savile  that  he 
first  remarked  a  change  ;  it  soon  spread  beyond 
the  walls  of  the  club.  Presently  I  find  him 
writing :  '  Will  you  kindly  explain  what  has 
happened  to  me  ?  All  my  life  I  have  talked  a 
good  deal,  with  the  almost  unfailing  result  of 
making  people  sick  of  the  sound  of  my  tougue. 
It  appeared  to  me  that  I  had  various  things  to 
say,  and  I  had  no  malevolent  feelings,  but  never- 
theless the  result  was  that  expressed  above. 
Well,  lately  some  change  has  happened.  If  I 
talk  to  a  person  one  day,  they  must  have  me 
the  next.  Faces  light  up  when  they  see  me. — 
"Ah,  I  say,  come  here," — "  come  and  dine  with 
me."  It's  the  most  preposterous  thing  I  ever  ex- 
perienced. It  is  curiously  pleasant.  You  have 
enjoyed  it  all  your  life,  and  therefore  cannot 
conceive  how  bewildering  a  burst  of  it  is  for  the 
first  time  at  forty-nine.'  And  this  late  sunshine 
of  popularity  still  further  softened  him.  He 
was  a  bit  of  a  porcupine  to  the  last,  still  shed- 
ding darts  ;  or  rather  he  was  to  the  end  a  bit  of  a 
schoolboy,  and  must  still  throw  stones  ;  but  the 
essential  toleration  that  underlay  his  disputa- 


252     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jcnkin. 

tiousness,  and  the  kindness  that  made  of  him  a 
tender  sicknurse  and  a  generous  helper,  shone 
more  conspicuously  through.  A  new  pleasure 
had  come  to  him  ;  and  as  with  all  sound  natures, 
he  was  bettered  by  the  pleasure. 

I  can  best  show  Fleeming  in  this  later  stage  by 
quoting  from  a  vivid  and  interesting  letter  of 
M.  Emile  Treat's.  Here,  admirably  expressed, 
is  how  he  appeared  to  a  friend  of  another 
nation,  whom  he  encountered  only  late  in  life. 
M.  TreUat  will  pardon  me  if  I  correct,  even  be- 
fore I  quote  him  ;  but  what  the  Frenchman  sup- 
posed to  flow  from  some  particular  bitterness 
against  France,  was  only  Fleeming's  usual  ad- 
dress. Had  M.  Tr£lat  been  Italian,  Italy  would 
have  fared  as  ill ;  and  yet  Italy  was  Fleeming's 
favourite  country. 

Vous  savez  comment  j'ai  connu  Fleeming  Jenkin  ! 
C'etait  en  Mai  1878.  Nous  etions  tous  deux  raembres 
du  jury  de  1'Exposition  Universelle.  On  n'avait  rien 
fait  qui  vaille  a  la  premiere  seance  de  notre  classe,  qui 
avait  eu  lieu  le  matin.  Tout  le  monde  avait  parle  et 
reparle  pour  ne  rien  dire.  Cela  durait  depuis  huit 
heures ;  il  etait  midi.  Je  demandai  la  parole  pour  une 
motion  d'ordre,  et  je  proposal  que  la  seanca  fut  levee  a 
la  condition  que  chaque  membre  francais  emportdt  dt 
dejeuner  un  jure  etranger.  Jenkin  applaudit.  '  Je  vous 


M,   Trtlat  's  Letter.  253 

cmmane  dejeuner,'  lui  criai-je.  'Je  veux  bien.'  .  .  . 
Nous  partimes ;  en  chemin  nous  vous  rencontrions ;  il 
vous  presente  et  nous  aliens  dejeuner  tous  trois  aupres 
du  Trocadero. 

Et,  depuis  ce  temps,  nous  avons  etc1  de  vieux  amis. 
Non  seulement  nous  passions  nos  journees  au  jury,  ou 
nous  etions  toujours  ensemble,  cote-a-cote.  Mais  nos 
habitudes  s'etaient  faites  telles  que,  non  contents  de 
dejeuner  en  face  1'un  de  1'autre,  je  le  ramenais  diner 
presque  tous  les  jours  chez  moi.  Cela  dura  une  quin- 
zaine  :  puis  il  fut  rappele  en  Angleterre.  Mais  il  revint, 
et  nous  fimes  encore  une  bonne  etape  de  vie  intellect- 
uelle,  morale  et  philosophique.  Je  crois  qu'il  me 
rendait  deja  tout  ce  que  j'eprouvais  de  sympathie  et 
d'estime,  et  que  je  ne  fus  pas  pour  rien  dans  sonretour 
a  Paris. 

Chose  singuliere  !  nous  nous  etions  attaches  1'un  a 
1'autre  par  les  sous-entendus  bien  plus  que  par  la 
matiere  de  nos  conversations.  A  vrai  dire,  nous  etions 
presque  toujours  en  discussion ;  et  il  nous  arrivait  de 
nous  rire  au  nez  1'un  et  1'autre  pendant  des  heures,  tant 
nous  nous  etonnions  reciproquement  de  la  diversite  de 
nos  points  de  vue.  Je  le  trouvais  si  Anglais,  et  il  me 
trouvait  si  Fran^ais  !  II  etait  si  franchement  revoke"  de 
certaines  choses  qu'il  voyait  chez  nous,  et  je  compre- 
nais  si  mal  certaines  choses  qui  se  passaient  chez  vous  ! 
Rien  de  plus  interessant  que  ces  contacts  qui  etaient 
des  contrastes,  et  que  ces  rencontres  d'idees  qui  etaient 
des  choses ;  rien  de  si  attachant  que  les  dchappees  de 
cceur  ou  d'esprit  auxquelles  ces  petits  conflits  donnaient 
a  tout  moment  cours.  C'ect  dans  ces  conditions  que, 
pendant  son  sejour  a  Paris  en  1878,  je  conduisis  un  peu 
partout  mon  nouvel  ami.  Nous  allSmes  chez  Madame 
Edmond  Adam,  ou  il  vit  passer  beaucoup  d'hommes 


254     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

politiques  avec  lesquels  il  causa.  Mais  c'est  chez  les 
ministres  qu'il  fut  interess£.  Le  moment  £tait,  d'ail- 
leurs,  curieux  en  France.  Je  me  rappelle  que,  lorsque 
je  le  presentai  au  Ministre  du  Commerce,  il  fit  cette 
spirituelle  repartie  :  '  C'est  la  seconde  fois  que  je  viens 
en  France  sous  la  Rcpublique.  La  premiere  fois,  c'etait 
en  1848,  elle  s'etait  coiffee  de  travers :  je  suis  bien 
heureux  de  saluer  aujourd'hui  votre  excellence,  quand 
elle  a  mis  son  chapeau  droit.'  Une  fois  je  le  menai 
voir  couronner  la  Rosiere  de  Nanterre.  II  y  suivit  les 
ceremonies  civiles  et  religieuses  ;  il  y  assistaau  banquet 
donne  par  le  Maire  ;  il  y  vit  notre  de  Lesseps,  auquel  il 
porta  un  toast.  Le  soir,  nous  revinmes  tard  4  Paris ;  il 
faisait  cnaud  ;  nous  etions  un  peu  fatigues ;  nous  en- 
trames  dans  un  des  rares  cafes  encore  ouverts.  II  de- 
vint  silencieux. — '  N'etes-vous  pas  content  de  votre 
journee  ?  '  lui  dis-je. — ;  O,  si !  mais  je  reflechis,  et  je  me 
dis  que  vous  etes  un  peuple  gai — tous  ces  braves  gens 
etaient  gais  aujourd'hui.  C'est  une  vertu,  la  gaiete,  et 
Vous  1'avez  en  France,  cette  vertu  ! '  II  me  disait  cela 
melancoliquement ;  et  c'etait  la  premiere  fois  que  je  lui 
entendais  faire  une  louange  adressee  a  la  France.  .  .  . 
Mais  il  ne  faut  pas  que  vous  voyiez  l<i  une  plainte  de 
ma  part.  Je  serais  un  ingrat  si  je  me  plaignais ;  car 
il  me  disait  souvent :  '  Quel  bon  Frangais  vous  faites  ! ' 
Et  il  m'aimait  a  cause  de  cela,  quoiqu'il  semblat  n'aimer 
pas  la  France.  C'etait  la  un  trait  de  son  originalite.  II 
est  vrai  qu'il  s'en  tirait  en  disant  que  je  ne  ressemblai 
pas  i  mes  compatriotes,  ce  a  quoi  il  ne  connaissait  rien  ! 
— Tout  cela  etait  fort  curieux ;  car,  moi-meme,  je 
1'aimais  quoiqu'il  en  etit  i  mon  pays  ! 

En  1879  il  amena  son  fils  Austin  a  Paris.  J'attirai 
celui-ci.  II  dejeunait  avec  moi  deux  fois  par  semaine. 
Je  lui  montrai  ce  qu'etait  1'intimite  frangaise  en  le  tu- 


M.    Tr Mat's  Letter.  255 

toyant  paternellement.  Cela  reserra  beaucoup  nos  liens 
d'intimite  avec  jenkin.  .  .  .  Je  fis  inviter  mon  ami  au 
congres  de  \' Association  francaise  pour  I'avancement  des 
sciences,  qui  se  tenait  &  Rheims  en  1880.  II  y  vint. 
J'eus  le  plaisir  de  lui  donner  la  parole  dans  la  section 
du  genie  civil  et  militaire,  que  je  presidais.  II  y  fit  une 
tr£s  interessante  communication,  qui  me  montrait  une 
fois  de  plus  I'originalite  de  ses  vues  et  la  surete  de  sa 
science.  C'est  a  Tissue  de  ce  congres  que  je  passai  lui 
iaire  visite  &  Rochefort,  ou  je  le  trouvai  installe  en  fa- 
mille  et  ou  je  presentai  pour  la  premiere  fois  mes  hom- 
mages  4  son  eminente  compagne.  Je  le  vis  la  sous  un 
jour  nouveau  et  touchant  pour  moi.  Madame  Jenkin, 
qu'il  entoirrait  si  galamment,  et  ses  deux  jeunes  fils 
donnaient  encore  plus  de  relief  a  sa  personne.  J'em- 
portai  des  quelques  heures  que  je  passai  A  cote  de  lui 
dans  ce  charmant  paysage  un  souvenir  emu. 

J'etais  alle  en  Angleterre  en  1882  sans  pouvoir  gag- 
ner  Edimbourg.  J'y  retournai  en  1883  avec  la  com- 
mission d'assainissement  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  dont  je 
faisais  partie.  Jenkin  me  rejoignit.  Je  le  fis  entendre 
par  mes  collegues ;  car  il  etait  fondateur  d'une  socie'te' 
de  salubrite.  II  cut  un  grand  succes  parmi  nous. 
Mais  ce  voyage  me  restera  toujours  en  me"moire  parce 
que  c'est  li  que  se  fixa  d'fenitivement  notre  forte  am- 
ide. II  m'invita  un  jour  a  diner  i  son  club  et  au  mo- 
ment de  me  fatre  asseoir  i  cot6  de  lui,  il  me  retint  et 
mo  dit:  'Je  voudrais  vous  demander  de  m'accorder 
quclque  chose.  C'est  mon  sentiment  que  nos  relations 
ne  peuvent  pas  se  bien  continuer  si  vous  ne  me  donnez 
pas  la  permission  de  vous  tutoyer.  Voulez-vous  que 
nous  nous  tutoyions  ? '  Je  lui  pris  les  mains  et  je  lui  dis 
qu'une  pareille  proposition  venant  d'un  Anglais,  et  d'un 
Anglais  de  sa  haute  distinction,  c'etait  une  victoire,  dont 


256     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jen  kin. 

je  serais  fier  toul  e  ma  vie.  Et  nous  commencions  a  user 
de  cette  nouvelle  forme  dans  nos  rapports.  Vous  savez 
avec  quelle  finesse  il  parlait  le  frangais :  comme  il  en 
connaissait  tous  les  tours,  comme  il  jouait  avec  ses  dif- 
ncultes,  et  meme  avec  ses  petites  gamineries.  Je  crois 
qu'il  a  etc  heureux  de  pratiquer  avec  moi  ce  tutoie- 
ment,  qui  ne  s'adapte  pas  a  1'anglais,  et  qui  est  si  fran- 
cais.  Je  ne  puis  vous  peindre  1'etendue  et  la  variete 
de  nos  conversations  de  la  soiree.  Mais  ce  que  je  puis 
vous  dire,  c'est  que,  sous  la  caresse  du  tu,  nos  idees  se 
sont  elevees.  Nous  avions  toujours  beaucoup  ri  en- 
semble ;  mais  nous  n'avions  jamais  laisse  des  banalites 
s'introduire  dans  nos  echanges  de  pensees.  Ce  soir-la, 
notre  horizon  intellectuel  s'est  elargie,  et  nous  y  avons 
pousse  des  reconnaissances  profondes  et  lointaines. 
Apres  avoir  vivement  cause  a  table,  nous  avons  longue- 
ment  cause  au  salon ;  et  nous  nous  separion's  le  soir  £ 
Trafalgar  Square,  apres  avoir  longe  les  trottoirs,  sta- 
tionne  aux  coins  des  rues  et  deux  fois  rebrousse  chemin 
en  nous  reconduisant  1'un  1'autre.  II  etait  pres  d'une 
heure  du  matin  !  Mais  quelle  belle  passe  d'argu menta- 
tion, quels  beaux  echanges  de  sentiments,  quelles  fortes 
confidences  patriotiques  nous  avions  fournies !  J'ai 
compris  ce  soir  la  que  Jenkin  ne  detestait  pas  la  France, 
et  je  lui  serrai  fort  les  mains  en  rembrassant.  Nous 
nous  quittions  aussi  amis  qu'on  puisse  1'etre ;  et  notre 
affection  s'etait  par  lui  etendue  et  comprise  dans  un  tu 
frangais. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

1875—1885. 

Mrs.  Jenkin's  Illness— Captain  Jenkin— The  Golden  Wedding- 
Death  of  Uncle  John -Death  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Austin— Illness 
and  Death  of  the  Captain — Death  of  Mrs.  Jenkin — Effect  on 
Fleeming — Telpherage — The  End. 

A  ND  now  I  must  resume  my  narrative  for 
•»  *•  that  melancholy  business  that  concludes 
all  human  histories.  In  January  of  the  year 
1875,  while  Fleeming's  sky  was  still  unclouded, 
he  was  reading  Smiles.  '  I  read  my  engineers' 
lives  steadily,'  he  writes,  '  but  find  biographies 
depressing.  I  suspect  one  reason  to  be  that 
misfortunes  and  trials  can  be  graphically  de- 
scribed, but  happiness  and  the  causes  of  happi- 
ness either  cannot  be  or  are  not.  A  grand  new 
branch  of  literature  opens  to  my  view :  a  drama 
in  which  people  begin  in  a  poor  way  and  end, 
after  getting  gradually  happier,  in  an  ecstasy  of 
enjoyment.  The  common  novel  is  not  the  thing 
at  all.  It  gives  struggle  followed  by  relief.  I 
want  each  act  to  close  on  a  new  and  triumphant 

(257) 


258     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

happiness,  which  has  been  steadily  growing  all 
the  while.  This  is  the  real  antithesis  of  tragedy, 
where  things  get  blacker  and  blacker  and  end  in 
hopeless  woe.  Smiles  has  not  grasped  my  grand 
idea,  and  only  shows  a  bitter  struggle  followed 
by  a  little  respite  before  death.  Some  feeble 
critic  might  say  my  new  idea  was  not  true  to 
nature.  I'm  sick  of  this  old-fashioned  notion  of 
art.  Hold  a  mirror  up,  indeed  !  Let's  paint  a 
picture  of  how  things  ought  to  be  and  hold  that 
up  to  nature,  and  perhaps  the  poor  old  woman 
may  repent  and  mend  her  ways.'  The  'grand 
idea '  might  be  possible  in  art ;  not  even  the  in- 
genuity of  nature  could  so  round  in  the  actual 
life  of  any  man.  And  yet  it  might  almost  seem 
to  fancy  that  she  had  read  the  letter  and  taken 
the  hint ;  for  to  Fleeming  the  cruelties  of  fate 
were  strangely  blended  with  tenderness,  and 
when  death  came,  it  came  harshly  to  others, 
to  him  not  unkindly. 

In  the  autumn  of  that  same  year  1875,  Fleers- 
ing's  father  and  mother  were  walking  in  the  gar- 
den of  their  house  at  Merchiston,  when  the  lat- 
ter fell  to  the  ground.  It  was  thought  at  the 
time  to  be  a  stumble  ;  it  was  in  all  likelihood  a 


Illness  of  his  Mother.  259 

premonitory  stroke  of  palsy.  From  that  day, 
there  fell  upon  her  an  abiding  panic  fear ;  that 
glib,  superficial  part  of  us  that  speaks  and  rea- 
sons could  allege  no  cause,  science  itself  could 
find  no  mark  of  danger,  a  son's  solicitude  was 
laid  at  rest ;  but  the  eyes  of  the  body  saw  the 
approach  of  a  blow,  and  the  consciousness  of 
the  body  trembled  at  its  coming.  It  came  in  a 
moment ;  the  brilliant,  spirited  old  lady  leapt 
from  her  bed,  raving.  For  about  six  months, 
this  stage  of  her  disease  continued  with  many 
painful  and  many  pathetic  circumstances  ;  her 
husband  who  tended  her,  her  son  who  was  un- 
wearied in  his  visits,  looked  for  no  change  in  her 
condition  but  the  change  that  comes  to  all. 
'  Poor  mother/  I  find  Fleeming  writing,  '  I  can- 
not get  the  tones  of  her  voice  out  of  my  head. 
...  I  may  have  to  bear  this  pain  for  a  long 
time ;  and  so  I  am  bearing  it  and  sparing  my- 
self whatever  pain  seems  useless.  Mercifully  I 
do  sleep,  I  am  so  weary  that  I  must  sleep.' 
And  again  later :  *  I  could  do  very  well,  if  my 
mind  did  not  revert  to  my  poor  mother's  state 
whenever  I  stop  attending  to  matters  immedi- 
ately before  me.'  And  the  next  day:  'I  can 


260     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

never  feel  a  moment's  pleasure  without  having 
my  mother's  suffering  recalled  by  the  very  feel- 
ing of  happiness.  A  pretty,  young  face  recalls 
hers  by  contrast — a  careworn  face  recalls  it  by 
association.  I  tell  you,  for  I  can  speak  to  no 
one  else ;  but  do  not  suppose  that  I  wilfully  let 
my  mind  dwell  on  sorrow.' 

In  the  summer  of  the  next  year,  the  frenzy 
left  her ;  it  left  her  stone  deaf  and  almost  en- 
tirely aphasic,  but  with  some  remains  of  her  old 
sense  and  courage.  Stoutly  she  set  to  work 
with  dictionaries,  to  recover  her  lost  tongues; 
and  had  already  made  notable  progress,  when  a 
third  stroke  scattered  her  acquisitions.  Thence- 
forth, for  nearly  ten  years,  stroke  followed  upon 
stroke,  each  still  further  jumbling  the  threads  of 
her  intelligence,  but  by  degrees  so  gradual  and 
with  such  partiality  of  loss  and  of  survival,  that 
'  her  precise  state  was  always  and  to  the  end  a 
matter  of  dispute.  She  still  remembered  her 
friends ;  she  still  loved  to  learn  news  of  them 
upon  the  slate ;  she  still  read  and  marked  the 
list  of  the  subscription  library;  she  still  took  an 
interest  in  the  choice  of  a  play  for  the  theatri- 
cals,  and  could  remember  and  find  parallel  pas- 


Kind  Friends.  261 

sages ;  but  alongside  of  these  surviving  powers, 
were  lapses  as  remarkable,  she  misbehaved  like 
a  child,  and  a  servant  had  to  sit  with  her  at  ta- 
ble. To  see  her  so  sitting,  speaking  with  the 
tones  of  a  deaf  mute  not  always  to  the  purpose, 
and  to  remember  what  she  had  been,  was  a  mov- 
ing appeal  to  all  who  knew  her.  Such  was  the 
pathos  of  these  two  old  people  in  their  affliction, 
that  even  the  reserve  of  cities  was  melted  and 
the  neighbours  vied  in  sympathy  and  kindness. 
Where  so  many  were  more  than  usually  helpful, 
it  is  hard  to  draw  distinctions ;  but  I  am  di- 
rected and  I  delight  to  mention  in  particular 
the  good  Dr.  Joseph  Bell,  Mr.  Thomas,  and  Mr. 
Archibald  Constable  with  both  their  wives,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Belcombe  (of  whose  good  heart  and 
taste  I  do  not  hear  for  the  first  time — the  news  had 
come  to  me  by  way  of  the  Infirmary),  and  their 
next-door  neighbour,  unwearied  in  service,  Miss 
Hannah  Mayne.  Nor  should  I  omit  to  mention 
that  John  Ruffini  continued  to  write  to  Mrs.  Jen- 
kin  till  his  own  death,  and  the  clever  lady  known 
to  the  world  as  Vernon  Lee  until  the  end :  a 
touching,  a  becoming  attention  to  what  was  only 
the  wreck  and  survival  of  their  brilliant  friend. 


262     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

But  he  to  whom  this  affliction  brought  the 
greatest  change  was  the  Captain  himself. 
What  was  bitter  in  his  lot,  he  bore  with  un- 
shaken courage ;  only  once,  in  these  ten  years 
of  trial,  has  Mrs.  Fleeming  Jenkin  seen  him 
weep ;  for  the  rest  of  the  time  his  wife — his 
commanding  officer,  now  become  his  trying 
child — was  served  not  with  patience  alone,  but 
with  a  lovely  happiness  of  temper.  He  had  be- 
longed all  his  life  to  the  ancient,  formal,  speech- 
making,  compliment-presenting  school  of  cour- 
tesy; the  dictates  of  this  code  partook  in  his 
eyes  of  the  nature  of  a  duty ;  and  he  must  now 
be  courteous  for  two.  Partly  from  a  happy  il- 
lusion, partly  in  a  tender  fraud,  he  kept  his  wife 
before  the  world  as  a  still  active  partner.  When 
he  paid  a  call,  he  would  have  her  write  '  with 
love'  upon  a  card;  or  if  that  (at  the  moment) 
was  too  much,  he  would  go  armed  with  a  bou- 
quet and  present  it  in  her  name.  He  even 
wrote  letters  for  her  to  copy  and  sign :  an  in- 
nocent substitution,  which  may  have  caused 
surprise  to  Ruffini  or  to  Vernon  Lee,  if  they 
ever  received,  in  the  hand  of  Mrs.  Jenkin  the 
very  obvious  reflections  of  her  husband.  He 


Captain  Jenkin.  263 

had  always  adored  this  wife  whom  he  now 
tended  and  sought  to  represent  in  correspond- 
ence :  it  was  now,  if  not  before,  her  turn  to  re- 
pay the  compliment ;  mind  enough  was  left  her 
to  perceive  his  unwearied  kindness ;  and  as  her 
moral  qualities  seemed  to  survive  quite  unim- 
paired, a  childish  love  and  gratitude  were  his 
reward.  She  would  interrupt  a  conversation  to 
cross  the  room  and  kiss  him.  If  she  grew  ex- 
cited (as  she  did  too  often)  it  was  his  habit  to 
come  behind  her  chair  and  pat  her  shoulder ; 
and  then  she  would  turn  round,  and  clasp  his 
hand  in  hers,  and  look  from  him  to  her  visitor 
with  a  face  of  pride  and  love  ;  and  it  was  at  such 
moments  only  that  the  light  of  humanity  re- 
vived in  her  eyes.  It  was  hard  for  any  stranger, 
it  was  impossible  for  any  that  loved  them,  to 
behold  these  mute  scenes,  to  recall  the  past, 
and  not  to  weep.  But  to  the  Captain,  I  think 
it  was  all  happiness.  After  these  so  long  years, 
he  had  found  his  wife  again ;  perhaps  kinder 
than  ever  before ;  perhaps  now  on  a  more 
equal  footing;  certainly,  to  his  eyes,  still 
beautiful.  And  the  call  made  on  his  intelli- 
gence had  not  been  made  in  vain.  The  mer- 


264     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

chants  of  Aux  Cayes,  who  had  seen  him  tried 
in  some  'counter-revolution'  in  1845,  wrote  to 
the  consul  of  his  '  able  and  decided  measures,' 
'  his  cool,  steady  judgment  and  discernment ' 
with  admiration ;  and  of  himself,  as  '  a  credit 
and  an  ornament  to  H.  M.  Naval  Service.'  It 
is  plain  he  must  have  sunk  in  all  his  powers, 
during  the  years  when  he  was  only  a  figure,  and 
often  a  dumb  figure,  in  his  wife's  drawing-room  ; 
but  with  this  new  term  of  service,  he  brightened 
visibly.  He  showed  tact  and  even  invention  in 
managing  his  wife,  guiding  or  restraining  her  by 
the  touch,  holding  family  worship  so  arranged 
that  she  could  follow  and  take  part  in  it.  He 
took  (to  the  world's  surprise)  to  reading — voy- 
ages, biographies,  Blair's  Sermons,  even  (for  her 
letter's  sake)  a  work  of  Vernon  Lee's,  which 
proved,  however,  more  than  he  was  quite  pre- 
pared for.  He  shone  more,  in  his  remarkable 
way,  in  society ;  and  twice  he  had  a  little  holi- 
day to  Glenmorven,  where,  as  may  be  fancied, 
he  was  the  delight  of  the  Highlanders.  One  of 
his  last  pleasures  was  to  arrange  his  dining-room. 
Many  and  many  a  room  (in  their  wandering  and 
thriftless  existence)  had  he  seen  his  wife  furnish 


Captain  Jenkin.  265 

'with  exquisite  taste'  and  perhaps  with  'con- 
siderable luxury ':  now  it  was  his  turn  to  be  the 
decorator.  On  the  wall  he  had  an  engraving  of 
Lord  Rodney's  action,  showing  the  Protkte,  his 
father's  ship,  if  the  reader  recollects ;  on  either 
side  of  this  on  brackets,  his  father's  sword,  and 
his  father's  telescope,  a  gift  from  Admiral  Buck- 
ner,  who  had  used  it  himself  during  the  engage- 
ment ;  higher  yet,  the  head  of  his  grandson's 
first  stag,  portraits  of  his  son  and  his  son's  wife, 
and  a  couple  of  old  Windsor  jugs  from  Mrs. 
Buckner's.  But  his  simple  trophy  was  not  yet 
complete ;  a  device  had  to  be  worked  and 
framed  and  hung  below  the  engraving;  and 
for  this  he  applied  to  his  daughter-in-law:  'I 
want  you  to  work  me  something,  Annie.  An 
anchor  at  each  side — an  anchor — stands  for  an 
old  sailor,  you  know — stands  for  hope,  you 
know  —  an  anchor  at  each  side,  and  in  the 
middle  THANKFUL.'  It  is  not  easy,  on  any 
system  of  punctuation,  to  represent  the  Cap- 
tain's speech.  Yet  I  hope  there  may  shine  out 
of  these  facts,  even  as  there  shone  through  his 
own  troubled  utterance,  some  of  the  charm  of 
that  delightful  spirit. 


266     Memoir  of  Flecming  yenkin. 

In  1881,  the  time  of  the  golden  wedding  came 
round  for  that  sad  and  pretty  household.  It 
fell  on  a  Good  Friday,  and  its  celebration  can 
scarcely  be  recalled  without  both  smiles  and 
tears.  The  drawing-room  was  filled  with  pres- 
ents and  beautiful  bouquets ;  these,  to  Fleem- 
ing  and  his  family,  the  golden  bride  and  bride- 
groom displayed  with  unspeakable  pride,  she  so 
painfully  excited  that  the  guests  feared  every 
moment  to  see  her  stricken  afresh,  he  guiding 
and  moderating  her  with  his  customary  tact  and 
understanding,  and  doing  the  honours  of  the 
day  with  more  than  his  usual  delight.  Thence 
they  were  brought  to  the  dining-room,  where 
the  Captain's  idea  of  a  feast  awaited  them :  tea 
and  champagne,  fruit  and  toast  and  childish  lit- 
tle luxuries,  set  forth  pell-mell  and  pressed  at 
random  on  the  guests.  And  here  he  must 
make  a  speech  for  himself  and  his  wife,  prais- 
ing their  destiny,  their  marriage,  their  son,  their 
daughter-in-law,  their  grandchildren,  their  mani- 
fold causes  of  gratitude :  surely  the  most  inno- 
cent speech,  the  old,  sharp  contemner  of  his  in- 
nocence now  watching  him  with  eyes  of  admi- 
ration. Then  it  was  time  for  the  guests  to 


Death  of  Uncle  John.  267 

depart ;  and  they  went  away,  bathed,  even  to 
the  youngest  child,  in  tears  of  inseparable  sor- 
row and  gladness,  and  leaving  the  golden  bride 
and  bridegroom  to  their  own  society  and  that 
of  the  hired  nurse. 

It  was  a  great  thing  for  Fleeming  to  make, 
even  thus  late,  the  acquaintance  of  his  father; 
but  the  harrowing  pathos  of  such  scenes  con- 
sumed him.  In  a  life  of  tense  intellectual  ef- 
fort, a  certain  smoothness  of  emotional  tenor 
were  to  be  desired ;  or  we  burn  the  candle  at 
both  ends.  Dr.  Bell  perceived  the  evil  that 
was  being  done ;  he  pressed  Mrs.  Jenkin  to  re- 
strain her  husband  from  too  frequent  visits  ;  but 
here  was  one  of  those  clear-cut,  indubitable  du- 
ties for  which  Fleeming  lived,  and  he  could  not 
pardon  even  the  suggestion  of  neglect. 

And  now,  after  death  had  so  long  visibly  but 
still  innocuously  hovered  above  the  family,  it  be- 
gan at  last  to  strike  and  its  blows  fell  thick  and 
heavy.  The  first  to  go  was  uncle  John  Jenkin, 
taken  at  last  from  his  Mexican  dwelling  and  the 
lost  tribes  of  Israel ;  and  nothing  in  this  remark- 
able old  gentleman's  life,  became  him  like  the 
leaving  of  it.  His  sterling,  jovial  acquiescence 


268     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

in  man's  destiny  was  a  delight  to  Fleeming. 
'  My  visit  to  Stowting  has  been  a  very  strange 
but  not  at  all  a  painful  one/  he  wrote.  '  In 
case  you  ever  wish  to  make  a  person  die  as  he 
ought  to  die  in  a  novel,'  he  said  to  me,  '  I  must 
tell  you  all  about  my  old  uncle.'  He  was  to 
see  a  nearer  instance  before  long ;  for  this  fam- 
ily of  Jenkin,  if  they  were  not  very  aptly  fitted 
to  live,  had  the  art  of  manly  dying.  Uncle 
John  was  but  an  outsider  after  all;  he  had 
dropped  out  of  hail  of  his  nephew's  way  of  life 
and  station  in  society,  and  was  more  like  some 
shrewd,  old,  humble  friend  who  should  have 
kept  a  lodge ;  yet  he  led  the  procession  of  be- 
coming deaths,  and  began  in  the  mind  of  Fleem- 
ing that  train  of  tender  and  grateful  thought, 
which  was  like  a  preparation  for  his  own.  Al- 
ready I  find  him  writing  in  the  plural  of  '  these 
impending  deaths';  already  I  find  him  in  quest 
of  consolation.  '  There  is  little  pain  in  store 
for  these  wayfarers,'  he  wrote,  '  and  we  have 
hops — more  than  hope,  trust.' 

On  May  19,  1884,  Mr.  Austin  was  taken.  He 
was  seventy-eight  years  of  age,  suffered  sharply 
with  all  his  old  firmness,  and  died  happy  in  the 


Death  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Austin.     269 

knowledge  that  he  had  left  his  wife  well  cared 
for.  This  had  always  been  a  bosom  concern ; 
for  the  Barrons  were  long-lived  and  he  believed 
that  she  would  long  survive  him.  But  their 
union  had  been  so  full  and  quiet  that  Mrs.  Aus- 
tin languished  under  the  separation.  In  their 
last  years,  they  would  sit  all  evening  in  their 
own  drawing-room  hand  in  hand :  two  old  peo- 
ple who,  for  all  their  fundamental  differences, 
had  yet  grown  together  and  become  all  the  world 
in  each  other's  eyes  and  hearts ;  and  it  was  felt 
to  be  a  kind  release,  when  eight  months  after,  on 
January  14,  1885,  Eliza  Barren  followed  Alfred 
Austin.  '  I  wish  I  could  save  you  from  all 
pain,'  wrote  Fleeming  six  days  later  to  his  sor- 
rowing wife,  '  I  would  if  I  could — but  my  way 
is  not  God's  way ;  and  of  this  be  assured, — God's 
way  is  best.' 

In  the  end  of  the  same  month,  Captain  Jenkin 
caught  cold  and  was  confined  to  bed.  He  was 
so  unchanged  in  spirit  that  at  first  there  seemed 
no  ground  of  fear ;  but  his  great  age  began  to 
tell,  and  presently  it  was  plain  he  had  a  sum- 
mons. The  charm  of  his  sailor's  cheerfulness 
and  ancient  courtesy,  as  he  lay  dying,  is  not  to 


2  jo     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

be  described.  There  he  lay,  singing  his  old  sea 
songs ;  watching  the  poultry  from  the  window 
with  a  child's  delight ;  scribbling  on  the  slate  lit- 
tle messages  to  his  wife,  who  lay  bed-ridden  in 
another  room  ;  glad  to  have  Psalms  read  aloud 
to  him,  if  they  were  of  a  pious  strain — checking, 
with  an  '  I  don't  think  we  need  read  that,  my 
dear,'  any  that  were  gloomy  or  bloody.  Fleem- 
ing's  wife  coming  to  the  house  and  asking  one 
of  the  nurses  for  news  of  Mrs.  Jenkin,  '  Madam, 
I  do  not  know,'  said  the  nurse ;  '  for  I  am  really 
so  carried  away  by  the  Captain  that  I  can  think 
of  nothing  else.'  One  of  the  last  messages  scrib- 
bled to  his  wife  and  sent  her  with  a  glass  of  the 
champagne  that  had  been  ordered  for  himself, 
ran,  in  his  most  finished  vein  of  childish  madri- 
gal :  '  The  Captain  bows  to  you,  my  love,  across 
the  table.'  When  the  end  was  near  and  it  was 
thought  best  that  Fleeming  should  no  longer  go 
home  but  sleep  at  Merchiston,  he  broke  his  news 
to  the  Captain  with  some  trepidation,  knowing 
that  it  carried  sentence  of  death.  '  Charming, 
charming — charming  arrangement,'  was  the  Cap- 
tain's  only  commentary.  It  was  the  proper 
thing  for  a  dying  man,  of  Captain  Jenkin's 


Death  of  his  Father  and  Mother-.     271 

school  of  manners,  to  make  some  expression 
of  his  spiritual  state ;  nor  did  he  neglect  the 
observance.  With  his  usual  abruptness,  '  Fleem- 
ing,'  said  he,  '  I  suppose  you  and  I  feel  about  all 
this  as  two  Christian  gentlemen  should.'  A  last 
pleasure  was  secured  for  him.  He  had  been 
waiting  with  painful  interest  for  news  of  Gor- 
don, and  Khartoum;  and  by  great  good  fortune, 
a  false  report  reached  him  that  the  city  was  re- 
lieved, and  the  men  of  Sussex  (his  old  neigh- 
bours) had  been  the  first  to  enter.  He  sat  up 
in  bed  and  gave  three  cheers  for  the  Sussex  regi- 
ment. The  subsequent  correction,  if  it  came  in 
time,  was  prudently  withheld  from  the  dying 
man.  An  hour  before  midnight  on  the  fifth 
of  February,  he  passed  away :  aged  eighty-four. 
Word  of  his  death  was  kept  from  Mrs.  Jenkin  ; 
and  she  survived  him  no  more  than  nine  and 
forty  hours.  On  the  day  before  her  death,  she 
received  a  letter  from  her  old  friend  Miss  Bell  of 
Manchester,  knew  the  hand,  kissed  the  envelope, 
and  laid  it  on  her  heart ;  so  that  she  too  died 
upon  a  pleasure.  Half  an  hour  after  midnight, 
on  the  eighth  of  February,  she  fell  asleep :  it  is 
supposed  in  her  seventy-eighth  year. 


272     Memoir  of  F teeming  Jenkin. 

Thus,  in  the  space  of  less  than  ten  months,  the 
four  seniors  of  this  family  were  taken  away  ;  but 
taken  with  such  features  of  opportunity  in  time 
or  pleasant  courage  in  the  sufferer,  that  grief 
was  tempered  with  a  kind  of  admiration.  The 
effect  on  Fleeming  was  profound.  His  pious  op- 
timism increased  and  became  touched  with  some- 
thing mystic  and  filial.  '  The  grave  is  not  gQod, 
the  approaches  to  it  are  terrible/  he  had  written 
in  the  beginning  of  his  mother's  illness :  he 
thought  so  no  more,  when  he  had  laid  father 
and  mother  side  by  side  at  Stowting.  He  had 
always  loved  life ;  in  the  brief  time  that  now  re- 
mained to  him,  he  seemed  to  be  half  in  love  with 
death.  '  Grief  is  no  duty/  he  wrote  to  Miss  Bell ; 
'  it  was  all  too  beautiful  for  grief/  he  said  to  me ; 
but  the  emotion,  call  it  by  what  name  we  please, 
shook  him  to  his  depths ;  his  wife  thought  he 
would  have  broken  his  heart  when  he  must  de- 
molish the  Captain's  trophy  in  the  dining-room, 
and  he  seemed  thenceforth  scarcely  the  same 
man. 

These  last  years  were  indeed  years  of  an  ex- 
cessive demand  upon  his  vitality;  he  was  not 
only  worn  out  with  sorrow,  he  was  worn  out  by 


Telpherage.  273 

hope.  The  singular  invention  to  which  he  gave 
the  name  of  telpherage,  had  of  late  consumed 
his  time,  overtaxed  his  strength  and  overheated 
his  imagination.  The  words  in  which  he  first 
mentioned  his  discovery  to  me — •  I  am  simply 
Alnaschar'  —  were  not  only  descriptive  of  his 
state  of  mind,  they  were  in  a  sense  prophetic ; 
since  whatever  fortune  may  await  his  idea  in  the 
future,  it  was  not  his  to  see  it  bring  forth  fruit. 
Alnaschar  he  was  indeed  ;  beholding  about  him 
a  world  all  changed,  a  world  filled  with  telpher- 
age wires ;  and  seeing  not  only  himself  and  fam- 
ily but  all  his  friends  enriched.  It  was  his  pleas- 
ure, when  the  company  was  floated,  to  endow 
those  whom  he  liked  with  stock ;  one,  at  least, 
never  knew  that  he  was  a  possible  rich  man  un- 
til the  grave  had  closed  over  his  stealthy  bene- 
factor. And  however  Fleeming  chafed  among 
material  and  business  difficulties,  this  rainbow 
vision  never  faded  ;  and  he,  like  his  father  and  his 
mother,  may  bs  said  to  have  died  upon  a  pleas- 
ure. But  the  strain  told,  and  he  knew  that  it 
was  telling.  '  I  am  becoming  a  fossil,'  he  had 
written  five  years  before,  as  a  kind  of  plea  for  a 
holiday  visit  to  his  beloved  Italy.  '  Take  care ! 


2  74     Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

If  I  am  Mr.  Fossil,  you  will  be  Mrs.  Fossil,  and 
Jack  will  be  Jack  Fossil,  and  all  the  boys  will  be 
little  fossils,  and  then  we  shall  be  a  collection. 
There  was  no  fear  more  chimerical  for  Fleem- 
ing ;  years  brought  him  no  repose ;  he  was  as 
packed  with  energy,  as  fiery  in  hope,  as  at  the 
first ;  weariness,  to  which  he  began  to  be  no 
stranger,  distressed,  it  did  not  quiet  him.  He 
feared  for  himself,  not  without  ground,  the  fate 
which  had  overtaken  his  mother ;  others  shared 
the  fear.  In  the  changed  life  now  made  for  his 
family,  the  elders  dead,  the  sons  going  from 
home  upon  their  education,  even  their  tried 
domestic  (Mrs.  Alice  Dunns)  leaving  the  house 
after  twenty-two  years  of  service,  it  was  not  un- 
natural that  he  should  return  to  dreams  of  Italy. 
He  and  his  wife  were  to  go  (as  he  told  me)  on 
'  a  real  honeymoon  tour.'  He  had  not  been 
alone  with  his  wife  '  to  speak  of,'  he  added, 
since  the  birth  of  his  children.  But  now  he 
was  to  enjoy  the  society  of  her  to  whom  he 
wrote,  in  these  last  days,  that  she  was  his 
'  Heaven  on  earth.'  Now  he  was  to  revisit 
Italy,  and  see  all  the  pictures  and  the  build- 
ings and  the  scenes  that  he  admired  so  warmly, 


The  End.  275 

and  lay  aside  for  a  time  the  irritations  of  his 
strenuous  activity.  Nor  was  this  all.  A  trifling 
operation  was  to  restore  his  former  lightness  of 
foot ;  and  it  was  a  renovated  youth  that  was  to 
set  forth  upon  this  reenacted  honeymoon. 

The  operation  was  performed;  it  was  of  a 
trifling  character,  it  seemed  to  go  well,  no  fear 
was  entertained ;  and  his  wife  was  reading  aloud 
to  him  as  he  lay  in  bed,  when  she  perceived  him 
to  wander  in  his  mind.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  ever 
recovered  a  sure  grasp  upon  the  things  of  life;  and 
he  was  still  unconscious  when  he  passed  away, 
June  the  twelfth,  1885,  in  the  fifty-third  year  of 
his  age.  He  passed  ;  but  something  in  his  gal- 
lant vitality  had  impressed  itself  upon  his  friends, 
and  still  impresses.  Not  from  one  or  two  only, 
but  from  many,  I  hear  the  same  tale  of  how  the 
imagination  refuses  to  accept  our  loss  and  in- 
stinctively looks  for  his  reappearing,  and  how 
memory  retains  his  voice  and  image  like  things  of 
yesterday.  Others,  the  well-beloved  too,  die  and 
are  progressively  forgotten  ;  two  years  have  pass- 
ed since  Fleeming  was  laid  to  rest  beside  his  fa- 
ther, his  mother,  and  his  Uncle  John ;  and  the 
thought  and  the  look  of  our  friend  still  haunt  us. 


APPENDIX. 


i. 


NOTE  ON  THE  CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  FLEEMING  JENKIN 
TO  ELECTRICAL  AND  ENGINEERING  SCIENCE.  BY 
SIR  WILLIAM  THOMSON,  F.R.S.,  LL.D.,  ETC.,  ETC. 

TN  the  beginning  of  the  year  1859  my  former  colleague 
(the  first  British  University  Professor  of  Engineer- 
ing), Lewis  Gordon,  at  that  time  deeply  engaged  in  the 
then  new  work  of  cable  making  and  cable  laying,  came 
to  Glasgow  to  see  apparatus  for  testing  submarine 
cables  and  signalling  through  them,  which  I  had  been 
preparing  for  practical  use  on  the  first  Atlantic  cable, 
and  which  had  actually  done  service  upon  it,  during  the 
six  weeks  of  its  successful  working  between  Valencia 
and  Newfoundland.  As  soon  as  he  had  seen  something 
of  what  I  had  in  hand,  he  said  to  me,  '  I  would  like  to 
show  this  to  a  young  man  of  remarkable  ability,  at  pres- 
ent engaged  in  our  works  at  Birkenhead.'  Fleeming 
Jenkin  was  accordingly  telegraphed  for,  and  appeared 
next  morning  in  Glasgow.  He  remained  for  a  week, 
spending  the  whole  day  in  my  class-room  and  labora- 
tory, and  thus  pleasantly  began  our  lifelong  acquaint- 
ance. I  was  much  struck,  not  only  with  his  brightness 

(277) 


2  ;  8  Appendix. 

and  ability,  but  with  his  resolution  to  understand  every- 
thing spoken  of,  to  see  if  possible  thoroughly  through 
every  difficult  question,  and  (no  if  about  this  !)  to  slur 
over  nothing.  I  soon  found  that  thoroughness  of  hon- 
esty was  as  strongly  engrained  in  the  scientific  as  in  the 
moral  side  of  his  character. 

In  the  first  week  of  our  acquaintance,  the  electric 
telegraph  and,  particularly,  submarine  cables,  and  the 
methods,  machines,  and  instruments  for  laying,  test- 
ing, and  using  them,  formed  naturally  the  chief  subject 
of  our  conversations  and  discussions  ;  as  it  was  in  fact 
the  practical  object  of  Jenkin's  visit  to  me  in  Glasgow ; 
but  not  much  of  the  week  had  passed  before  I  found 
him  remarkably  interested  in  science  generally,  and  full 
of  intelligent  eagerness  on  many  particular  questions 
of  dynamics  and  physics.  When  he  returned  from 
Glasgow  to  Birkenhead  a  correspondence  commenced 
between  us,  which  was  continued  without  intermission 
up  to  the  last  days  of  his  life.  It  commenced  with  a 
well-sustained  fire  of  letters  on  each  side  about  the 
physical  qualities  of  submarine  cables,  and  the  prac- 
tical results  attainable  in  the  way  of  rapid  signalling 
through  them.  Jenkin  used  excellently  the  valuable 
opportunities  for  experiment  allowed  him  by  Newall, 
and  his  partner  Lewis  Gordon,  at  their  Birkenhead  fac- 
tory. Thus  he  began  definite  scientific  investigation 
of  the  copper  resistance  of  the  conductor,  and  the  in- 
sulating resistance  and  specific  inductive  capacity  of  its 
gutta-percha  coating,  in  the  factory,  in  various  stages 


Appendix.  2  79 

of  manufacture  ;  and  he  was  the  very  first  to  introduce 
systematically  into  practice  the  grand  system  of  abso- 
lute measurement  founded  in  Germany  by  Gauss  and 
Weber.  The  immense  value  of  this  step,  if  only  in  re- 
spect to  the  electric  telegraph,  is  amply  appreciated  by 
all  who  remember  or  who  have  read  something  of  the 
history  of  submarine  telegraphy;  but  it  can  scarcely  be 
known  generally  how  much  it  is  due  to  Jenkin. 

Looking  to  the  article  '  Telegraph  (Electric)  '  in  the 
last  volume  of  the  old  edition  of  the  '  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,'  which  was  published  about  the  year  1861, 
we  find  on  record  that  Jenkin's  measurements  in  abso- 
lute units  of  the  specific  resistance  of  pure  gutta-percha, 
and  of  the  gutta-percha  with  Chatterton's  compound 
constituting  the  insulation  of  the  Red  Sea  cable  of  1859, 
are  given  as  the  only  results  in  the  way  of  absolute 
measurements  of  the  electric  resistance  of  an  insulat- 
ing material  which  had  then  been  made.  These  re- 
marks are  prefaced  in  the  'Encyclopaedia'  article  by 
the  following  statement :  '  No  telegraphic  testing  ought 
in  future  to  be  accepted  in  any  department  of  tele- 
graphic business  which  has  not  this  definite  character  ; 
although  it  is  only  within  the  last  year  that  convenient 
instruments  for  working,  in  absolute  measure,  have 
been  introduced  at  all,  and  the  whole  system  of  abso- 
lute measure  is  still  almost  unknown  to  practical  elec- 
tricians.' 

A  particular  result  of  great  importance  in  respect  to 
testing  is  referred  to  as  follows  in  the  '  Encyclopaedia ' 


280  Appendix. 

article :  '  The  importance  of  having  results  thus  stated 
in  absolute  measure  is  illustrated  by  the  circumstance, 
that  the  writer  has  been  able  at  once  to  compare  them, 
in  the  manner  stated  in  a  preceding  paragraph,  with 
his  own  previous  deductions  from  the  testings  of  the 
Atlantic  cable  during  its  manufacture  in  1857,  and  with 
Weber's  measurements  of  the  specific  resistance  of  cop- 
per.' It  has  now  become  universally  adapted — first  of 
all  in  England ;  twenty-two  years  later  by  Germany,  the 
country  of  its  birth ;  and  by  France  and  Italy,  and  all 
the  other  countries  of  Europe  and  America — practical- 
ly the  whole  scientific  world — at  the  Electrical  Con- 
gress in  Paris  in  the  years  1882  and  1884. 

An  important  paper  of  thirty  quarto  pages  published 
in  the  '  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society '  for  June  19, 
1862,  under  the  title  '  Experimental  Researches  on  the 
Transmission  of  Electric  Signals  through  submarine 
cables,  Part  I.  Laws  of  Transmission  through  various 
lengths  of  one  cable,  by  Fleeming  Jenkin,  Esq.,  com- 
municated by  C.  Wheatstone,  Esq.,  F.R.S.,'  contains  an 
account  of  a  large  part  of  Jenkin's  experimental  work 
in  the  Birkenhead  factory  during  the  years  1859  and 
1860.  This  paper  is  called  Part  I.  Part  II.  alas  never 
appeared,  but  something  that  it  would  have  included 
we  can  see  from  the  following  ominous  statement  which 
I  find  near  the  end  of  Part  1. :  '  From  this  value,  the 
electrostatical  capacity  per  unit  of  length  and  the 
specific  inductive  capacity  of  the  dielectric,  could  be 
determined.  These  points  will,  however,  be  more  fully 


Appendix.  281 

treated  of  in  the  second  part  of  this  paper.'  Jenkin 
had  in  fact  made  a  determination  at  Birkenhead  of  the 
specific  inductive  capacity  of  gutta-percha,  or  of  the 
gutta-pencha  and  Chatterton's  compound  constituting 
the  insulation  of  the  cable,  on  which  he  experimented. 
This  was  the  very  first  true  measurement  of  the  specific 
:'nductive  capacity  of  a  dielectric  which  had  been  made 
after  the  discovery  by  Faraday  of  the  existence  of  tuv 
property,  and  his  primitive  measurement  of  it  for  the 
three  substances,  glass,  shellac,  and  sulphur ;  and  at  the 
time  when  Jenkin  made  his  measurements  the  existence 
of  specific  inductive  capacity  was  either  unknown,  or 
ignored,  or  denied,  by  almost  all  the  scientific  authori- 
ties of  the  day. 

The  original  determination  of  the  microfarad,  brought 
out  under  the  auspices  of  the  British  Association  Com- 
mittee on  Electrical  Standards,  is  due  to  experimental 
work  by  Jenkin,  described  in  a  paper,  '  Experiments  on 
Capacity,'  constituting  No.  IV.  of  the  appendix  to  the 
Report  presented  by  the  Committee  to  the  Dundee 
Meeting  of  1867.  No  other  determination,  so  far  as  I 
know,  of  this  important  element  of  electric  measure- 
ment has  hitherto  been  made ;  and  it  is  no  small  thing 
to  be  proud  of  in  respect  to  Jenkin's  fame  as  a  scientific 
and  practical  electrician  that  the  microfarad  which  we 
now  all  use  is  his. 

The  British  Association  unit  of  electrical  resistance, 
on  which  was  founded  the  first  practical  approximation 
to  absolute  measurement  on  the  system  of  Gauss  and 


282  Appendix. 


Weber,  was  largely  due  to  Jenkin's  zeal  as  one  of  the 
originators,  and  persevering  energy  as  a  working  mem- 
ber, of  the  first  Electrical  Standards  Committee.  The 
experimental  work  of  first  making  practical  standards, 
founded  on  the  absolute  system,  which  led  to  the  unit 
now  known  as  the  British  Association  ohm,  was  chiefly 
performed  by  Clerk  Maxwell  and  Jenkin.  The  realisa- 
tion of  the  great  practical  benefit  which  has  resulted 
from  the  experimental  and  scientific  work  of  the  Com- 
mittee is  certainly  in  a  large  measure  due  to  Jenkin's 
zeal  and  perseverance  as  secretary,  and  as  editor  of  the 
volume  of  Collected  Reports  of  the  work  of  the  Com- 
mittee, which  extended  over  eight  years,  from  1861  till 
1869.  The  volume  of  Reports  included  Jenkin's  Cantor 
Lectures  of  January,  1866,  '  On  Submarine  Telegraphy,' 
through  which  the  practical  applications  of  the  scien- 
tific principles  for  which  he  had  worked  so  devotedly 
for  eight  years  became  part  of  general  knowledge  in  the 
engineering  profession. 

Jenkin's  scientific  activity  continued  without  abate- 
ment to  the  end.  For  the  last  two  years  of  his  life 
he  was  much  occupied  with  a  new  mode  of  electric 
locomotion,  a  very  remarkable  invention  of  his  own, 
to  which  he  gave  the  name  of '  Telpherage.'  He  per- 
severed with  endless  ingenuity  in  carrying  out  the 
numerous  and  difficult  mechanical  arrangements  es- 
sential to  the  project,  up  to  the  very  last  days  of  his 
work  in  life.  He  had  completed  almost  every  detail  of 
the  realisation  of  the  system  which  was  recently  opened 


Appendix.  283 

foi  practical  working  at  Glyndc,  in  Sussex,  four  months 
alter  his  death. 

{  His  book  on  '  Magnetism  and  Electricity,'  published 
as  one  of  Longman's  elementary  series  in  1873,  marked 
a  new  departure  in  the  exposition  of  electricity,  as  the 
first  text-book  containing  a  systematic  application  of 
the  quantitative  methods  inaugurated  by  the  British 
Association  Committee  on  Electrical  Standards.  In 
1883  the  seventh  edition  was  published,  after  there  had 
already  appeared  two  foreign  editions,  one  in  Italian 
and  the  other  in  German. 

His  papers  on  purely  engineering  subjects,  though 
not  numerous,  are  interesting  and  valuable.  Amongst 
these  may  be  mentioned  the  article  '  Bridges,'  written 
by  him  for  the  ninth  edition  of  the  '  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,'  and  afterwards  republished  as  a  separate 
treatise  in  1876;  and  a  paper  'On  the  Practical  Appli- 
cation of  Reciprocal  Figures  to  the  Calculation  of 
Strains  in  Framework,'  read  before  the  Royal  Society 
of  Edinburgh,  and  published  in  the  '  Transactions '  of 
that  Society  in  1869.  But  perhaps  the  most  important 
of  all  is  his  paper  'On  the  Application  of  Graphic 
Methods  to  the  Determination  of  the  Efficiency  of 
Machinery,'  read  before  the  Royal  Society  of  Edin- 
burgh, and  published  in  the  'Transactions,'  vol.  xxviii. 
(1876-78),  for  which  he  was  awarded  the  Keith  Gold 
Medal.  This  paper  was  a  continuation  of  the  subject 
treated  in  '  Reulaux's  Mechanism,'  and,  recognising  the 
value  of  that  work,  supplied  the  elements  required  to 


284  Appendix. 

constitute    from   Reulaux's  kinematic  system  a   full 
machine  receiving  energy  and  doing  work. 


II. 

NOTE  ON  THE  WORK  OF  Fl.EEMING  JENKIN  IN  CON- 
NECTION WITH  SANITARY  REFORM.  BY  LT.  COL. 
ALEXANDER  FERGUSSON. 

IT  was,  I  believe,  during  the  autumn  of  1877  that  there 
came  to  Fleeming  Jenkin  the  first  inkling  of  an 
idea,  not  the  least  in  importance  of  the  many  that  em- 
anated from  that  fertile  brain,  which,  with  singular 
rapidity,  took  root,  and  under  his  careful  fostering  ex- 
panded into  a  scheme  the  fruits  of  which  have  been  of 
the  utmost  value  to  his  fellow-citizens  and  others. 

The  phrase  which  afterwards  suggested  itself,  and 
came  into  use,  '  Healthy  houses,'  expresses  very  hap- 
pily the  drift  of  this  scheme,  and  the  ultimate  object 
that  Jenkin  had  in  view. 

In  the  summer  of  that  year  there  had  been  much 
talk,  and  some  newspaper  correspondence,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  unsatisfactory  condition  of  many  of  the 
best  houses  in  Edinburgh  as  regards  their  sanitary 
state.  One  gentleman,  for  example,  drew  an  appalling 
picture  of  a  large  and  expensive  house  he  had  bought 
in  the  West-end  of  Edinburgh,  fresh  from  the  builder's 
hands.  To  ascertain  precisely  what  was  wrong,  and 
the  steps  to  be  taken  to  remedy  the  evils,  the  effects 


Appendix.  285 

of  which  were  but  too  apparent,  obviously  demanded 
the  expenditure  of  much  time  and  careful  study  on  the 
part  of  the  intelligent  proprietor  himself  and  the  pro- 
fessional experts  he  had  to  call  in,  and,  it  is  needless 
to  add,  much  money.  There  came  also,  from  the 
poorer  parts  of  the  town,  the  cry  that  in  many  cases 
the  houses  of  our  working  people  were  built  anyhow 
that  the  dictates  of  a  narrow  economy  suggested  to 
the  speculative  and  irresponsible  builder.  The  horrors 
of  what  was  called  the  '  Sandwich  system,'  amongst 
other  evils,  were  brought  to  light.  It  is  sufficient  to 
say,  generally,  that  this  particular  practice  of  the 
builder  consists  in  placing  in  a  block  of  workmen's 
houses,  to  save  space  and  money,  the  water  cisterns  of 
one  flat,  directly  under  the  sanitary  appliances  of  the 
other,  and  so  on  to  the  top  of  a  house  of  several 
storeys.  It  is  easy  to  conceive  the  abominations  that 
must  ensue  when  the  leakage  of  the  upper  floors  be- 
gins to  penetrate  to  the  drinking  water  below.  The 
picture  was  a  hideous  one,  apart  from  the  well-known 
fact  that  a  whole  class  of  diseases  is  habitually  spread 
by  contaminated  water. 

In  October,  1876,  a  brisk  and  interesting  discussion 
had  been  carried  on  in  the  columns  of  the  Times  at 
intervals  during  the  greater  part  of  that  month,  in 
which  the  same  subject,  that  of  the  health  and  sewage 
of  towns,  had  been  dealt  with  by  several  writers  well 
informed  in  such  matters.  Amongst  others,  Professor 
Jenkin  himself  took  part,  as  did  Professor  G.  F.  Arm- 


286  Appendix. 

strong,  who  now  occupies  the  chair  of  Civil  Engineer- 
ing in  Edinburgh.  Many  of  the  truths  then  advanced 
had  been  recently  discussed  at  a  meeting  of  the  Brit- 
ish Association. 

It  was  while  such  topics  were  attracting  attention 
that  Fleeming  Jenkin's  family  were  shocked  by  the  sad 
intelligence  of  the  loss  that  friends  of  theirs  had  sus- 
tained in  the  deaths  of  several  of  their  children  from 
causes  that  could  be  traced  up  to  the  unsanitary  con- 
dition of  their  house.  Sympathy  took  the  practical 
form  of  an  intense  desire  that  something  might  be 
done  to  mitigate  the  chance  of  such  calamities ;  and, 
I  am  permitted  to  say,  the  result  of  a  home-talk  on  this 
subject  was  an  earnest  appeal  to  the  head  of  the  house 
to  turn  his  scientific  knowledge  to  account  in  some 
way  that  should  make  people's  homes  more  healthy, 
and  their  children's  lives  more  safe.  In  answer  to  the 
call  Jenkin  turned  his  thoughts  in  this  direction.  And 
the  scheme  which  I  shall  endeavour  briefly  to  sketch 
out  was  the  result. 

The  obvious  remedy  for  a  faulty  house  is  to  call  in  a 
skilful  expert,  architect  or  engineer,  who  will  doubtless 
point  out  by  means  of  reports  and  plans  what  is  wrong, 
and  suggest  a  remedy ;  but,  as  remarked  by  Professor 
Jenkin,  '  it  has  not  been  the  practice  for  leading  en- 
gineers to  advise  individuals  about  their  house  ar- 
rangements, except  where  large  outlay  is  in  contem- 
plation.' A  point  5f  very  considerable  importance  in 
such  a  case  as  that  now  supposed. 


Appendix.  287 

The  problem  was  to  ensure  to  the  great  body  of  the 
citizens  sound  professional  advice  concerning  their 
houses,  such  as  had  hitherto  been  only  obtainable  at 
great  cost — but  '  with  due  regard  to  economical  con- 
siderations.' 

The  advantages  of  co-operation  are  patent  to  all 
Everyone  can  understand  how,  if  a  sufficient  number 
of  persons  combine,  there  are  few  luxuries  or  advan- 
tages that  are  not  within  their  reach,  for  a  moderate 
payment.  The  advice  of  a  first-rate  engineer  regard- 
ing a  dwelling-house  was  a  palpable  advantage ;  but 
within  the  reach  of  comparatively  few.  One  has  heard 
of  a  winter  in  Madeira  being  prescribed  as  the  cure 
for  a  poor  Infirmary  sufferer. 

Like  most  good  plans  Jenkin's  scheme  was  simple  in 
the  extreme,  and  consisted  in  combination  and  a  small 
subscription. 

•Just,'  he  says,  'as  the  leading  physician  of  the  day 
may  give  his  services  to  great  numbers  of  poor  patients 
when  these  are  gathered  in  a  hospital,  although  he 
could  not  practically  visit  them  in  their  own  houses, 
so  the  simple  fact  of  a  number  of  clients  gathered  into 
a  group  will  enable  the  leading  engineer  to  give  them 
the  benefit  of  his  advice.' 

But  it  was  his  opinion  that  only  '  continual  super- 
vision could  secure  the  householder  from  danger  due 
to  defects  in  sanitary  appliances.'  He  had  in  his  eye  a 
case  precisely  similar.  The  following  passage  in  one  of 
bis  first  lectures,  afterwards  repeated  frequently,  conveys 


288  Appendix. 

the  essence  of  Professor  Jenkin's  theory,  as  well  as  ?» 
graceful  acknowledgment  of  the  source  from  which 
this  happy  idea  was  derived  : — 

'An  analogous  case  occurred  to  him/  he  said,  'in 
the  "Steam  Users'  Association,"  in  Lancashire.  So 
many  boilers  burst  in  that  district  for  want  of  inspec- 
tion that  an  association  was  formed  for  having  the 
boilers  under  a  continual  course  of  inspection.  Let  a 
perfect  boiler  be  bought  from  a  first-rate  maker,  the 
owner  has  then  an  apparatus  as  perfect  as  it  is  now 
sought  to  make  the  sanitary  appliances  in  his  house. 
But  in  the  course  of  time  the  boiler  must  decay.  The 
prudent  proprietor,  therefore,  joins  the  Steam-boiler 
Association,  which,  from  time  to  time,  examines  his 
boiler,  and  by  the  tests  they  apply  are  able  to  give  an 
absolute  guarantee  against  accident.  This  idea  of  an 
inspection  by  an  association  was  due,'  the  lecturer  con- 
tinued, '  to  Sir  William  Fairbairn,  under  whom  he  had 
the  honour  of  serving  his  apprenticeship.' '  The  steam 
users  were  thus  absolutely  protected  from  danger ;  and 
the  same  idea  it  was  sought  to  apply  to  the  sanitary 
system  of  a  house. 

To  bring  together  a  sufficient  number  of  persons,  to 
form  such  a  '  group '  as  had  been  contemplated,  was 
the  first  step  to  be  taken.  No  time  was  lost  in  taking 
it.  The  idea  hitherto  roughly  blocked  out  was  now 
given  a  more  definite  form.  The  original  sketch,  as 

1  See  paper  read  at  the  Congress  of  the  Social  Science  Associa- 
tion, Edinburgh,  October  8,  iSSo. 


Appendix.  289 

dictated  by  Jenkin  himself,  is  before  me,  and  I  cannot 
do  better  than  transcribe  it,  seeing  it  is  short  and  sim- 
ple. Several  important  alterations  were  afterwards 
made  by  himself  in  consultation  with  one  or  two  of  his 
Provisional  Council ;  and  as  experience  suggested : — 

'  The  objects  of  this  Association  are  twofold. 

'  I.  By  taking  advantage  of  the  principle  of  co- 
operation, to  provide  its  members  at  moderate  cost 
with  such  advice  and  supervision  as  shall  ensure  the 
proper  sanitary  condition  of  their  own  dwellings. 

'  2.  By  making  use  of  specially  qualified  officers  to  sup 
port  the  inhabitants  and  local  authorities  in  enforcing 
obedience  to  the  provisions  of  those  laws  and  by-laws 
which  affect  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  community. 

'  It  is  proposed  that  an  Association  with  these  ob- 
jects be  formed;  and  that  all  residents  within  the 
municipal  boundaries  of  Edinburgh  be  eligible  as 
members.  That  each  member  of  the  Association  shall 
subscribe  one  guinea  annually.  That  in  return  for  the 
annual  subscription  each  member  shall  be  entitled  to 
the  following  advantages : — 

'  i.  A  report  by  the  Engineer  of  the  Association  on 
the  sanitary  condition  of  his  dwelling,  with  specific  rec- 
ommendations as  to  the  improvement  of  drainage,  ven- 
tilation, &c.,  should  this  be  found  necessary. 

'  2.  The  supervision  of  any  alterations  in  the  sanitary 
fittings  of  his  dwelling  which  may  be  carried  out  by  the 
advice,  or  with  the  approval,  of  the  officers  of  the  As- 
sociation. 


290  Appendix. 

'  3.  An  annual  inspection  of  his  premises  by  the  En- 
gineer of  the  Association,  with  a  report  as  to  their  sani- 
tary condition. 

'4.  The  right,  in  consideration  of  a  payment  of  five 
shillings,  of  calling  on  the  Engineer,  and  legal  adviser ' 
of  the  Association  to  inspect  and  report  on  the  exist- 
ence of  any  infraction  or  supposed  infraction  of  any 
law  affecting  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  community. 

'  It  is  proposed  that  the  Association  should  be  man- 
aged by  an  unpaid  Council,  to  be  selected  by  ballot 
from  among  its  members. 

'  That  the  following  salaried  officers  be  engaged  by 
the  Association : 

'  i.  One  or  more  acting  engineers,  who  should  give 
their  services  exclusively  to  the  Association. 

'2.  A  consulting  engineer,  who  should  exercise  a 
general  supervision,  and  advise  both  on  the  general 
principles  to  be  followed,  and  on  difficult  cases. 

'  3.  A  legal  agent,  to  be  engaged  on  such  terms  as 
the  Council  shall  hereafter  think  fit. 

'4.  A  permanent  secretary. 

'  It  is  also  proposed  that  the  officers  of  the  Associa- 
tion should,  with  the  sanction  of  the  Council,  have 
power  to  take  legal  proceedings  against  persons  who 
shall,  in  their  opinion,  be  guilty  of  any  infraction  of 
sanitary  regulations  in  force  throughout  the  district ; 
and  generally  it  is  intended  that  the  Association  shall 

i  It  was  ultimately  agreed  not  to  appoint  an  officer  of  this  kind  till 
occasion  should  arise  for  his  services  ;  cone  has  been  appointed. 


Appendix.  291 

further  and  promote  ail  undertakings  which,  in  their 
opinion,  are  calculated  to  improve  the  sanitary  crmdi 
tion  of  Edinburgh  and  its  immediate  neighbourhood. 

'  In  one  aspect  this  Association  will  be  analogous  to 
the  Steam  Boiler  Users'  Association,  who  co-operate 
in  the  employment  of  skilled  inspectors.  In  a  second 
aspect  it  will  be  analogous  to  the  Association  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  which  assists  the 
community  in  enforcing  obedience  to  existing  laws.' 

Towards  the  end  of  November,  1877,  this  paper  was 
handed  about  among  those  who  v/ere  thought  most 
likely,  from  their  position  and  public  spirit,  to  forward 
such  a  scheme,  so  clearly  for  the  good  of  the  commu- 
nity. Nay  more,  a  systematic  'canvass'  was  set  on 
foot ;  personal  application  the  most  direct  was  made 
use  of.  The  thing  was  new,  and  its  advantages  not 
perfectly  obvious  to  all  at  a  glance.  Everyone  who 
knows  with  what  enthusiastic  earnestness  Jenkin 
would  take  hold  of,  and  insist  upon,  what  he  felt  to 
be  wholesome  and  right  will  understand  how  he  per- 
sisted, how  he  patiently  explained,  and  swept  away  ob- 
jections that  were  raised.  One  could  not  choose  but 
listen,  and  understand,  and  agree. 

On  the  evening  of  2nd  January,  1878,  or,  to  be  more 
correct,  the  morning  of  the  3rd,  two  old  school-fellows 
of  his  at  the  Edinburgh  Academy  walked  home  with 
him  from  an  annual  dinner  of  their  '  Class.'  All  the 
way  in  glowing  language  he  expounded  his  views  of 
house  inspection,  and  the  protection  of  health,  asking 


292  Appendix. 

for  sympathy.  It  was  most  readily  given,  and  they 
parted  from  him  with  pleasant  words  of  banter  re- 
garding this  vision  of  his  of  grafting  'cleanliness* 
upon  another  quality  said  to  be  a  growth,  in  some 
sort,  of  this  northern  land  of  ours. 

But  they  reckoned  hardly  sufficiently  on  the  fact 
that  when  Jenkin  took  a  thing  of  this  kind  in  hand  it 
must  be  ;  if  it  lay  within  the  scope  of  a  clear  head  and 
boundless  energy. 

Having  secured  a  nucleus  of  well-wishers,  the  next 
step  was  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  the  general  public. 
It  was  sought  to  effect  this  by  a  series  of  public  lec- 
tures. The  first  of  these  (one  of  two)  was  given  on 
22nd  January  under  the  auspices  of  the  Edinburgh 
Philosophical  Institution.  It  was  apparent  to  the 
shrewd  lecturer  that  in  bringing  before  the  people  a 
scheme  like  this,  where  there  was  much  that  was 
novel,  it  was  necessary  first  of  all  that  his  audience 
should  be  aware  of  the  evils  to  which  they  were  ex- 
posed in  their  own  houses,  before  unfolding  a  plan  for 
a  remedy.  The  correspondence  already  referred  to  as 
having  been  carried  on  in  the  summer  of  the  previous 
year  had  shown  how  crude  were  the  ideas  of  many  per- 
sons well  informed,  or  considered  to  be  so,  on  this  sub- 
ject. For  example,  there  are  few  now-a-days  who  are 
not  aware  that  a  drain,  to  be  safe,  must  have  at  inter- 
vals along  its  course  openings  to  the  upper  air,  or  that 
it  must  be  'ventilated,'  as  the  phrase  goes.  But  at  the 
time  spoken  of  there  were  some  who  went  so  far  as  10 


Appendix.  293 

question  this  principle;  even  to  argue  against  it;  call- 
ing  forth  this  forcible  reply — '  Here  is  a  pretty  farce. 
You  pour  out  a  poison  and  send  it  off  on  its  way  to  the 
sea,  and  forget  that  on  its  way  there  its  very  essence 
will  take  wings  and  fly  back  into  your  house  up  the  very 
pipes  it  but  recently  ran  down.'  A  properly  '  trapped  ' 
and  ventilated  drain  was  the  cure  for  this. 

And  the  lecturer  proceeded  to  show  that  in  Edin- 
burgh, where  for  the  most  part  house  construction  is 
good  and  solid,  but,  as  in  other  towns,  the  bulk  of  the 
houses  were  built  when  the  arrangements  for  internal 
sewerage  and  water  supply  were  very  little  understood, 
many  serious  errors  were  made.  '  But,'  the  lecturer 
went  on  to  say,  '  Sanitary  Science  was  now  established 
on  a  fairly  sound  basis,  and  the  germ  theory,  or  theory 
of  septic  ferments,  had  explained  much  which  used  to 
be  obscure.  This  theory  explained  how  it  was  that 
families  might  in  certain  cases  live  with  fair  health  for 
many  years  in  the  midst  of  great  filth,  while  the  dwell- 
ers in  large  and  apparently  clean  mansions  were  struck 
down  by  fever  and  diphtheria.  The  filth  which  was 
found  compatible  with  health  was  always  isolated  filth, 
and  until  the  germs  of  some  specific  disease  were  in- 
troduced, this  dirt  was  merely  injurious,  not  poisonous. 
The  mansions  which  were  apparently  clean  and  yet 
fever-visited  were  found  to  be  those  in  which  arrange- 
ments had  been  made  for  the  removal  of  offensive 
matter,  which  arrangements  served  also  to  distribute 
poison  germs  from  one  house  to  another,  from  one 


294  Appendix. 

room  to  another.  These  mansions  had  long  suckers 
extended  from  one  to  another  through  the  common 
sewer.  Through  these  suckers,  commonly  called 
"  house  drains,"  they  imbibed  every  taint  which  any 
one  house  in  the  system  could  supply.  In  fact,  arrange- 
ments were  too  often  made  which  simply  "  laid  on  " 
poison  to  bed-rooms  just  as  gas  or  water  was  laid  on. 
He  had  known  an  intelligent  person  declare  that  no 
harm  could  come  up  a  certain  pipe  which  ended  in 
a  bed-room,  because  nothing  offensive  went  down. 
That  person  had  never  realised  the  fact  that  his  pipe 
joined  another  pipe,  which  again  joined  a  sewer,  which 
again  whenever  there  was  an  epidemic  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, received  innumerable  poison  germs ;  and  that, 
although  nothing  more  serious  than  scented  soap  and 
water  went  down,  the  germs  of  typhoid  fever  might 
any  day  come  up.' 

Professor  Jenkin  then  proceeded  to  show  how  a 
house  might  be  absolutely  cut  off  from  all  contami- 
nation from  these  sources  of  evil.  Then  by  means  of 
large  diagrams  he  showed  the  several  systems  of  pipes 
within  a  house.  One  system  coloured  red  showed  the 
pipes  that  received  foul  matter.  A  system  marked  in 
blue  showed  pipes  used  to  ventilate  this  red  system. 
The  essential  conditions  of  safety  in  the  internal  fit- 
tings of  a  house — it  was  inculcated — were  that  no  air  to 
be  breathed,  no  water  to  be  drunk,  should  ever  be 
contaminated  by  connection  with  red  or  blue  systems. 
Then  in  yellow  were  shown  the  pipes  which  received 


Appendix.  295 

dirty  .vater,  which  was  not  necessarily  foul.  Lastly  a 
white  system,  which  under  no  circumstances  must  ever 
touch  the  '  red,'  '  blue,'  or  '  yellow '  systems.  Such  a 
diagram  recalled  the  complicated  anatomical  drawings 
which  illustrate  the  system  of  arteries  and  veins  in  the 
human  frame.  Little  wonder,  then,  that  one  gentle- 
man remarked,  in'  perplexity,  that  he  had  not  room  in 
his  house  for  such  a  mass  of  pipes ;  but  they  were  al- 
ready there,  with  other  pipes  besides,  all  carefully  hid- 
den away,  as  in  the  human  tenement,  with  the  inevi- 
table result — as  the  preacher  of  cleanliness  and  health 
declared — '  out  of  sight,  out  of  mind.' 

In  plain  and  forcible  language  were  demonstrated 
the  ills  this  product  of  modern  life  is  heir  to  ;  and  the 
drastic  measures  that  most  of  them  demand  to  secure 
the  reputation  of  a  healthy  house.  Lastly  the  for- 
mation of  an  Association  to  carry  out  the  idea  (already 
sketched)  cheaply,  was  briefly  introduced. 

Next  morning,  January  23rd,  was  the  moment  chosen 
to  lay  the  scheme  formally  before  the  public.  In  all 
the  Edinburgh  newspapers,  along  with  lengthy  reports 
of  the  lecture,  appeared,  in  form  of  an  advertisement, 
a  statement l  of  the  scheme  and  its  objects,  supported 

1  Briefly  stated,  the  points  submitted  in  this  prospectus  were  these  : 

1.  That  the  proposed  Association  was  a  Society  for  the  benefit  of 
its  members  and  the  community  that  cannot  be  used  foi  any  purposes 
of  profit. 

2.  The  privileges  of  members  include  the  annual  inspection  ol 
their  premises,  as  well  as  a  preliminary  report  on  their  condition 
with  an  estimate  of  the  cost  of  any  alterations  recommended. 


296  Appendix. 

by  an  imposing  array  of  '  Provisional  Council.'  In  due 
course  several  of  the  Scots  newspapers  and  others, 
such  as  the  Building  News,  gave  leading  articles,  all  of 
them  directing  attention  to  this  new  thing,  as  '  an  in- 
teresting experiment  about  to  be  tried  in  Edinburgh,' 
'  what  promises  to  be  a  very  useful  sanitary  movement, 
now  being  organised,  and  an  example  set  that  may  be 
worthy  of  imitation  elsewhere,'  and  so  on. 

Several  of  the  writers  waxed  eloquent  on  the  sin- 
gular ingenuity  of  the  scheme  ;  the  cheap  professional 
advice  to  its  adherents,  &c. ;  and  the  rare  advantages 
to  be  gained  by  means  of  co-operation  and  the  tra- 
ditional 'one  pound  one.' 

The  Provisional  Council  was  absolutely  representa- 
tive of  the  community,  and  included  names  more  than 
sufficient  to  inspire  confidence.  It  included  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant  of  the  county,  Lord  Rosebery;  the  Lord 
Justice  Clerk,  Lord  Moncrieff ;  the  Lord  Advocate  ; 
Sir  Robert  Christison ;  several  of  the  Judges  of  the 
Court  of  Session ;  the  Presidents  of  the  Colleges  of 
Physicians,  and  of  Surgeons ;  many  of  the  Professors 
of  the  University ;  the  Bishop  of  Edinburgh,  and  the 

3.  The  skilled  inspection  from  time  to  time  of  drains  and  all  san- 
itary arrangements. 

4.  No  obligation  on  the  part  of  members  to  carry  out  any  of  the 
suggestions  made  by  the  engineers  of  the  Association,  who  merely 
give  skilled  advice  when  such  is  desired. 

5.  The  officers  of  the  Association  to  have  no  interest  in  any  out- 
lay recommended. 

6.  The  Association  might  be  of  great  service  to  the  poorer  mem- 
bers of  the  community. 


Appendix.  297 

Dean ;  several  of  the  best  known  of  the  Clergy  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  Established,  Free,  and  of  other 
branches ;  one  or  two  members  of  Parliament ;  more 
than  one  lady  (who  should  have  been  perhaps  men- 
tioned earlier  on  this  list)  well  known  for  large  views 
and  public  spirit ;  several  well-known  country  gentle- 
men; one  or  two  distinguished  civil  engineers  and 
architects  ;  and  many  gentlemen  of  repute  for  intelli- 
gence and  business  qualities. 

Very  soon  after  the  second  of  the  promised  lectures, 
the  members  of  the  new  Society  began  to  be  num- 
bered by  hundreds.  By  the  28th  of  February,  500  sub- 
scribers having  been  enrolled,  they  were  in  a  position 
to  hold  their  first  regular  meeting  under  the  presidency 
of  Sir  Robert  Christison,  when  a  permanent  Council 
composed  of  many  of  those  who  had  from  the  first 
shown  an  interest  in  the  movement — for  example,  Pro- 
fessor (now  Sir  Douglas)  Maclagan  and  Lord  Dean  of 
Guild  (now  Sir  James)  Gowans,  Professor  Jenkin  him- 
self undertaking  the  duties  of  Consulting  Engineer 
— were  appointed.  And  Jenkin  was  singularly  for- 
tunate in  securing  as  Secretary  the  late  Captain 
Charles  Douglas,  a  worker  as  earnest  as  himself.  It 
was  the  theory  of  the  originator  that  the  Council, 
composed  of  leading  men  not  necessarily  possessed  of 
engineering  knowledge,  should  'give  a  guarantee  to 
the  members  that  the  officials  employed  should  have 
been  carefully  selected,  and  themselves  work  under 
supervision.  Every  householder  in  this  town,'  he 


298  Appendix. 

adds,  'knows  the  names  of  the  gentlemen  composing 
our  Council.' 

The  new  Association  was  a  success  alike  in  town  and 
country.  Without  going  far  into  statistics  it  will  be 
evident  what  scope  there  was,  and  is,  for  such  opera- 
tions when  it  is  stated  that  last  year  (1885)  60  per  cent. 
of  the  houses  inspected  in  London  and  its  neighbour- 
hood were  found  to  have  foul  air  escaping  direct  into 
them,  and  81  per  cent,  had  their  sanitary  appliances  in 
an  unsatisfactory  state.  Here  in  Edinburgh  things 
were  little,  if  any,  better ;  as  for  the  country  houses,  the 
descriptions  of  some  were  simply  appalling.  As  the 
new  Association  continued  its  operations  it  became 
the  rdle  of  the  Consulting  Engineer  to  note  such  objec- 
tions, hypothetical  or  real,  as  were  raised  against  the 
working  of  his  scheme.  Some  of  these  were  ingenious 
enough :  but  all  were  replied  to  in  order,  and  satis- 
factorily resolved.  It  was  shown,  for  example,  that 
•you  might  have  a  dinner  party  in  your  house  on  the 
day  of  your  inspection  ';  that  the  Association  worked  in 
the  utmost  harmony  with  the  city  authorities,  and  with 
the  tradesmen  usually  employed  in  such  business;  and 
that  the  officials  were  as  'confidential'  as  regards  the 
infirmities  of  a  house  as  any  physician  consulted  by  a 
patient.  The  strength  of  the  engineering  staff  has 
been  varied  from  time  to  time  as  occasion  required ;  at 
the  moment  of  writing  employment  is  found  in  Edin- 
burgh and  country  districts  in  various  parts  of  Scotland 
*OT  five  engineers  temporarily  or  permanently  engaged. 


Appendix.  299 

The  position  Jenkin  claimed  for  the  Engineers  was  a 
high  one,  but  not  too  high :  thus  he  well  defined  it: — 

'  In  respect  of  Domestic  Sanitation  the  business  of 
the  Engineer  and  that  of  the  medical  man  overlap ;  for 
while  it  is  the  duty  of  the  engineer  to  learn  from  the 
doctor  what  conditions  are  necessary  to  secure  health, 
the  engineer  may,  nevertheless,  claim  in  his  turn  the 
privilege  of  assisting  in  the  warfare  against  disease  by 
using  his  professional  skill  to  determine  what  mechan- 
ical and  constructive  arrangements  are  best  adapted  to 
secure  these  conditions.' ' 

Flattery  in  the  form  of  imitation  followed  in  due 
course.  A  branch  was  established  at  St.  Andrews,  and 
one  of  the  earliest  of  similar  institutions  was  founded 
at  Newport  in  the  United  States.  Another  sprang  up 
at  Wolverhampton.  In  1881  two  such  societies  were 
announced  as  having  been  set  on  foot  in  London.  And 
the  Times  of  April  I4th,  in  a  leading  article  of  some 
length,  drew  attention  to  the  special  features  of  the 
plan  which  it  was  stated  had  followed  close  upon  a 
paper  read  by  Professor  Fleeming  Jenkin  before  the 
Society  of  Arts  in  the  preceding  month  of  January. 
The  adherents  included  such  names  as  those  of  Sir 
William  Gull,  Professor  Huxley,  Professor  Burdon 
Sanderson,  and  Sir  Joseph  Fayrer.  The  Saturday  Re- 
view, in  January,  had  already  in  a  characteristic  article 
enforced  the  principles  of  the  scheme,  and  shown  how, 
for  a  small  annual  payment,  '  the  helpless  and  hope- 
>  Healthy  Houses,  \f?  Professor  Fleeming  JenkiHi  p.  54. 


300  Appendix. 

less  condition  of  the  householder  at  the  mercy  of  the 
plumber'  might  be  for  ever  changed. 

The  London  Association,  established  on  the  lines  of 
the  parent  society,  has  been  followed  by  many  others 
year  by  year ;  amongst  these  are  Bradford,  Chelten- 
ham, Glasgow,  and  Liverpool  in  1882  ;  Bedford,  Bright- 
on, and  Newcastle  in  1883;  Bath,  Cambridge,  Cardiff, 
Dublin,  and  Dundee  in  1884;  and  Swansea  in  1885;  and 
while  we  write  the  first  steps  are  being  taken,  with  help 
from  Edinburgh,  to  establish  an  association  at  Mon- 
treal ;  sixteen  Associations. 

Almost,  it  may  be  said,  a  bibliography  has  been 
achieved  for  Fleeming  Jenkin's  movement. 

In  1878  was  published  Healthy  Houses  (Edin.,  David 
Douglas),  being  the  substance  of  the  two  lectures  already 
mentioned  as  having  been  delivered  in  Edinburgh  with 
the  intention  of  laying  open  the  idea  of  the  scheme 
then  in  contemplation,  with  a  third  addressed  to  the 
Medico-Chirurgical  Society.  This  book  has  been  long 
out  of  print,  and  such  has  been  the  demand  for  it  that 
the  American  edition '  is  understood  to  be  also  out  of 
print,  and  unobtainable. 

In  1880  was  printed  (London,  Spottiswoode  &  Co.) 
a  pamphlet  entitled  What  is  the  Best  Mode  of  Amend- 
ing the  Present  Laws  with  Reference  to  Existing  Build- 

1  It  is  perhaps  worth  mentioning  as  a  curiosity  of  literature  that 
the  American  publishers  who  produced  this  book  in  the  States,  with- 
out consulting  the  author,  afterwards  sent  him  a  handsome  cheque, 


Appendix.  301 

ings,  and  also  of  Improving  their  Sanitary  Condition 
with  due  Regard  to  Economical  Considerations  I— the 
substance  of  a  paper  read  by  Professor  Jenkin  at  the 
Congress  of  the  Social  Science  Association  at  Edin- 
burgh in  October  of  that  year. 

The  first  item  of  Health  Lectures  for  the  People 
(Edin.,  1881)  consists  of  a  discourse  on  the  'Care  of 
the  Body '  delivered  by  Professor  Jenkin  in  the  Watt 
Institution  at  Edinburgh,  in  which  the  theories  of 
he  use  sanitation  are  dwelt  on. 

House  Inspection,  reprinted  from  the  Sanitary  Record, 
was  issued  in  pamphlet  form  in  1882.  And  another 
small  tract,  Houses  of  the  Poor;  their  Sanitary  Arrange- 
ment, in  1885. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  said  that  while  the  idea 
formulated  by  Jenkin  has  been  carried  out  with  a  meas- 
ure of  success  that  could  hardly  have  been  foreseen, 
in  one  point  only,  it  may  be  noted,  has  expectation 
oeen  somewhat  disappointed  as  regards  the  good  that 
these  Associations  should  have  effected — and  the  fact 
was  constantly  deplored  by  the  founder — namely,  the 
comparative  failure  as  a  means  of  improving  the  con- 
dition of  the  dwellings  of  the  poorer  classes.  It  was 
'  hoped  that  charity  and  public  spirit  would  have  used 
the  Association  to  obtain  reports  on  poor  tenements, 
and  to  remedy  the  most  glaring  evils.' ' 

1  It  is  true,  handsome  tenements  for  working  people  have  been 
built,  such  as  the  picturesque  group  of  houses  erected  with  this  ob- 
ject bv  a  member  of  the  Council  of  the  Edinburgh  Sanitary  Asso 


302  Appendix. 

The  good  that  these  associations  have  effected  is  not 
to  be  estimated  by  the  numbers  of  their  membership. 
They  have  educated  the  public  on  certain  points.  The 
fact  that  they  exist  has  become  generally  known,  and, 
by  consequence,  persons  of  all  classes  are  induced  to 
satisfy  themselves  of  the  reasons  for  the  existence  of 
such  institutions,  and  thus  they  learn  of  the  evils  that 
have  called  them  into  being. 

Builders,  burgh  engineers,  and  private  individuals  in 
any  way  connected  with  the  construction  of  dwellings 
in  town  or  country  have  been  put  upon  their  mettle, 
and  constrained  to  keep  themselves  abreast  with  the 
wholesome  truths  which  the  engineering  staff  of  all 
these  Sanitary  Associations  are  the  means  of  dissem- 
inating. 

In  this  way,  doubtless,  some  good  may  indirectly 
nave  been  done  to  poorer  tenements,  though  not  ex- 
actly in  the  manner  contemplated  by  the  founder. 

Now,  if  it  be  true  that  Providence  helps  those  who 
help  themselves,  surely  a  debt  of  gratitude  is  due  to 
him  who  has  placed  (as  has  been  attempted  to  be  shown 
in  this  brief  narrative)  the  means  of  self-help  and  the 
attainment  of  a  palpable  benefit  within  the  reach  of  all 
through  the  working  of  a  simple  plan,  whose  motto 
well  may  be, '  Healthy  Houses ';  and  device  a  strangled 
snake.  A.  F. 

ciation,  at  Bell's  Mills,  so  well  seen  from  the  Dean  Bridge,  where 
every  appliance  that  science  can  suggest  has  been  made  use  of.  But 
for  the  ordinary  houses  of  the  poor  the  advice  of  the  Association's 
engineers  lias  been  but  rarely  taken  advantage  of. 


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remind  one  of  the  work  of  a  skilled  'genre  '  painter.  Nor  does  he  hesitate  .... 
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THE   WORKS  OF  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 


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In  these  delightful  fables  will  be  found  a  new 
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book  form,  attractively  bo 


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This  luxurious  edition  of  Mr.  Stevenson's  works  will  be  comple.  "xl 
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